The Trades Union Congress (TUC) has said that employees should be trusted to spend a few minutes of their lunchbreak ‘poking’ their friends or making plans for outside work using the social networking site, Facebook.
Last week, HR Zone reported that 50 per cent of employees are blocked from accessing Facebook, including Lloyds TSB, Credit Suisse and Goldman Sachs, because of concerns that it saps productivity and is a security threat.
The TUC has issued new advice which encourages employers to put in place policies covering the use of email and the web, including social networking sites, at work.
TUC general secretary Brendan Barber said: “Simply cracking down on use of new web tools like Facebook is not a sensible solution to a problem, which is only going to get bigger. It’s unreasonable for employers to try to stop their staff from having a life outside work, just because they can’t get their heads around the technology. Better to invest a little time in working out sensible conduct guidelines, so that there don’t need to be any nasty surprises for staff or employers.”
The TUC also warns that employers who take equal opportunities in recruitment seriously should not be tempted to check out the profiles of job applicants on Facebook. As only a minority of potential recruits will have public profiles on social networks, using information from this source can give an unfair advantage or disadvantage to certain candidates, it said.
