The Social Ban

I have a number of friends and professional acquaintances doubling up on their smart phones.  Typically the corporate issue Blackberry and the personal i-phone.  i-Life junkies?  Not really.  The common  dilemma for the double down is to stay connected to one’s network (yes that would be facebook, twitter etc.) at work.  Someone, somewhere didn’t quite grasp the benefit of a connected workforce and decided the potential for lost productivity was too great a risk.  So the ‘Social Ban’ is on.  And the lost opportunity to harness all of the good that comes from these connections and lack of trust the organization is demonstrating is in full effect. Professional speaker and thought leader Tim Sanders offers up some terrific commentary in his The Digital Benefit Post.  His thought:  “offer the digital benefit or lose the upcoming war for talent.” On the money (and if you ever get a chance to see Tim speak live, don’t pass it up).  I had an opportunity to talk with Todd Raphael and Raghav Singh for an ERE Podcast on Social Media and recruiting and expressed my opinion that the ‘Social Ban’ is short sighted and simply isn’t in the best interest of the organization.  The foundation of any good relationship is trust.  The employment relationship is no different.  It is the very core of employee engagement.