Social networking lowers working hours

BANGALORE, INDIA: Close to 12.5 per cent of productivity of human resource in corporate sector is misappropriated each day since a vast majority of them while away their time accessing social networking sites during the office hours, reveal findings of The Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry of India (ASSOCHAM) survey.

Almost each day, an average corporate employee spends an hour, gluing to various social networking sites such as Orkut, Facebook, Myspace, Linkdein etc. for romancing or otherwise drive some satisfaction out of it. With this average corporate employee’s each day working is reduced by an hour from 8 hour to 7 hour.

The above findings are arrived at a random survey, carried out by the ASSOCHAM Social Development Foundation (ASDF) conducted in the month of September, October and November 2009 on a subject of corporate employee’s involvement for networking.

ASSOCHAM Secretary General D S Rawat said, “ Majority of companies effectively lose close to 12.5 per cent of total productivity each day since their employee keep accessing aforesaid sites. As a matter of fact growing use of browsing sites can be dangerous for overall productivity and IT companies have already installed software to restrict its use.”

The most sought after site for the purpose has been found to be Orkut and Facebook especially for corporate personnel of age group of 21-30 followed by Mypscae and Linkdein. These two sites entertain and cater to corporate employees that fall in age bracket of 31-45 and even beyond says, the findings.

The survey showed that 77 per cent of workers who have Orkut account use it during work hours. Interestingly, 83 per cent see nothing wrong in surfing at work during the office hours.

ASSOCHAM Research shows that nearly half of office employees access social networking sites such as Facebook during office work. Moreover, 4 in every 10 workers built their entire Orkut, Facebook profile during work.

It has been found that nearly 82 per cent of workers have a Facebook account. The average worker uses it for 30-40 minutes a day which adds up to a lost week each year.

More than half of office workers use sites like orkut, Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin and Myspace for personal use during the working day, and admit wasting an average of 40-60 minutes each day.

15 per cent office employee said they share intra information on social networking sites in office. 60 per cent said that they use around 40-50 minutes a day, but 40 per cent said that they use up to an hour a day.

Young professionals join the social networking sites the most. It also reveals that 93 per cent of youngsters are aware of social networking sites. Orkut and Facebook are found to be the most popular online destinations among survey respondents. 73 per cent of aged 45-58 spend over an hour online daily to use online sources to access news.

The study has pointed out that employee’s the best excuse to check out their Facebook or Orkut accounts during lunch breaks but turning to social networking sites or general Internet surfing in the office hours.

84 per cent of Internet users in metropolitans show signs of addiction - they don’t take breaks at appropriate times, they spend more than a ‘normal’ amount of time online, and can get irritable if they are interrupted while surfing.

However, since most organizations do not monitor and manage these sites as closely as email, it opens up the potential to violate corporate communication policies, said  ASSOCHAM.

It is also found that 19 per cent of companies allow social networking use only for business purposes, while 16 per cent allow limited personal use. Only 40 per cent of the employee interviewed said that their companies allow employees full access to social networks during work hours.

Using social networking sites may divert employees' attention away from more priorities. For some professions, however, these sites can be leveraged as effective business tools, one in five companies allows their use for work-related purposes.