Loads of coverage today for this. Hopefully stop a few more knee-jerk Facebook bans. Whilst an employer is obviously well within their rights to stop personal use of their own kit, it’s a bit silly to just stop Facebook because of the hype, and ignore the others, or whatever comes next. Do the nation’s managers really want to all have to become IT geeks, and spot whichever new technology has the potential to waste time?
Better surely, to work out in advance with staff what they can do and when, so that time wasting stays in the employees’ own time, and nobody needs to get disciplined for anything.
And for those who still think it’s a laughing matter – check out this worrying development.
😉
Hmm
Maybe the big public sector union bosses need to think before they open there mouths and start talking about isues(that they dont understand) that wil only make organising in the high tech area dificult for those of us working that area.
FFS did they not see how this would be used as stick to beat unions with look at the comments in the register http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/08/30/tuc_facebook/
I can see where the slightly sarky comment about bredans apearance in second life came from the top table came at the last conference I attended.
some times its best to say nowt!
You’re right about the Reg comments, but I think half the commenters of the Reg want to be the BOFH, so their comments fields are always a bit gung-ho. The rest of the coverage of it was pretty positive (even if it did focus on the easy access issue, rather than trickier stuff around conduct, recruitment and security) – especially the blogs (though any web2.0er would be on side anyway!).
It’s a good point that sysadmins are going to get narked by anything that will put more work on them and their resources (thankfully it wasn’t about YouTube or BitTorrenting!), but it’s an issue that resonates with private sector workers more widely. The number of ‘ban’ stories over recent weeks dissing workers as slackers who can’t be trusted to have access to this in their own time has been a bit annoying, especially as this can all be fixed by a bit of proper management instead.
I think that if people want to get round these bans they will find ways. To give an example: Mozilla Firefox can fit on a flash drive (there are many ‘portable’ size applications). It would be possible to load it from a flash drive plugged into a work computer.
I use this method to get round bans in public libraries, on aol etc on specific political websites. I find many of the blocks arbitrary and like to make up my own mind what I look at.
There are also proxy servers.
I think that output is the best indication of whether someone is doing their job or not and micro-management or control freakery is itself a waste of time and resources.
That’s certainly possible Pat, but a bit away from the point I think – I’d not recommend proxy surfing at work to anyone at work as if found out, they’d get doubly drubbed on by the boss for knowingly going around the rules.
Better to change the rules so both parties know where they stand. If you’ve got workplace recognition for a proper union, that’s a good forum to take this up with your boss.
Agree your point on trust vs micro-management. For pretty reasonable personal use (obviously not porn, scams or some of the political sites you probably look at), a reasonable employer will get a happier and more loyal staff by letting them use the web in their own time, just like by letting them use the phone occasionally.
I want make some friend.