Social networking sites cost UK economy up to £14bn pa

LydiaJ

I don't use social networking sites at work, but I do spend time at work doing other things that aren't work - chatting to friends, making non-work phone calls on my mobile, that sort of thing. However, my attitude to these things is different at my two jobs:

Job 1 (teaching part time): My job is defined in terms of the work. I have to teach specific lessons, do occasional lunch duties, contribute to department meetings, contribute to extra curricular stuff, and do all the marking, preparation, report writing etc that arise from the lessons. As long as I do those things, nobody cares when I do them (apart from the actual lessons of course). So yes, sometimes I make non-work phone calls in work time (but not on work's phone bill) and sometimes I write reports or mark exams at 2am at home. I do the work. My HoD is happy with my work. How I organise my time is up to me.

Job 2 (mix of admin and pastoral at a church): I'm contracted to do x hours a week, but I can decide which hours they are, and it doesn't have to be the same every week. When I'm in the office, I'm working, or else I'm not adding it into my mental check on this week's working hours. If I'm in the office for three and a half hours on Tuesday, but only working for 3 of them, then I only count it as 3 hours when I'm planning which hours I'm going to work on Thursday and Friday. Nobody checks up on me, and I don't have to sign in and out, or anything, and it doesn't bother me if sometimes there's a rush on and I work more hours than I'm contracted for. It's just that I wouldn't be comfortable being paid for more work than I'm actually doing, particularly since the church's income comes from people giving.

olly300

Mozette wrote: »

Well you can't access any kind of social network site or even forum from where I work, you just get a screen saying it's banned, so I'm sure if any workplace has a problem with people using them, they could do similar.

Depends on what job you do.

Both the roles I currently do involve heavy use of the internet.

For one of them I have to use social media which once it becomes a job is not enjoyable. In my case it is learning when others are active on the internet which is usually first thing in the morning, at lunch time and on their way home as most people now use it from their mobile phones.

My other role involves using stuff and information from technical websites and forums. One client site I worked on banned any site that had the word "jobs" in it whether it was an advert or part of a post. This meant instead of taking 5-30 minutes to find something out you took 3 hours to 24 hours depending if you asked everyone in the building or went home to look up the information.

vivatifosi

olly300 wrote: »

My other role involves using stuff and information from technical websites and forums. One client site I worked on banned any site that had the word "jobs" in it whether it was an advert or part of a post. This meant instead of taking 5-30 minutes to find something out you took 3 hours to 24 hours depending if you asked everyone in the building or went home to look up the information.

That reminds me of a temp job I did for a short while for the government. I needed to update anti-drug literature for children, but even looking up "magic mushrooms" on the Frank website caused the system to throw a wobbly and a phone call to come my way from the system administrators. I did explain that I needed to look up drugs as part of my job but "computer said no". They did kindly suggest that I could do it at home, but as I was temping and wouldn't get paid I politely said no :rotfl:.

Graham_Devon

One of the places I work at had a new manager. This new manager basically said "do what you like". We couldn't believe it. If we want to get up, go to the shop and buy a sandwich off we go. If we want to take lunch at 2.15 instead of 1pm, we do so. Obviously common sense dictates that if you are required to be at a meeting or something, you go to that meeting on time.

It's bizzare. We now all take mini breaks instead of full hours. So we actually find ourselves at our desks more, doing more work....just pop to the shops if we want to.

The 5pm drop and go routine has dissapeared. People are still around at 5.15 etc, finishing things off....they used to be out the door at 5pm and ready to walk at 4.55pm.

Basically I can do what I want, even have an Xbox360 and TV at work. It's pretty good, though the expectance is that you get whatever you have got to get done, on time and in a professional fashion. If that means working half an hour late, so be it.

The other place I work at, it's all "ooo, i stayed 10 mins late that night, wheres my time sheet" and people sitting down to another 4 hour block of work, moaning that so and so has a better model of footrest. It simply doesn't work as well. People seem determined for instance to take their lunch hour in full, regardless of what's actually going on. Problems could be happening, but it's hit 1pm, so it's out the door and everything waits until 2pm. 11am, everything stops for a 10 min coffee.

Google have it really sorted.....just ace!
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/7290322.stm

dave4545454

PasturesNew wrote: »

For me, the biggest noticeable difference in companies over the past 10 years has been the number of people who work part-time - and how that impacts on getting business done.

I'm tired of trying to get work done, only to contact people to be told "oh they leave at 3", or "they only work Tue-Thu". That's no good. That's holding things up in my opinion. OK, have people that work part-time, but not roles. Other people should be able to do the job when the part-timers aren't around.

It's everywhere now - and you used to very very very rarely encounter it.

If I am on a project and need some figures/data/feedback, I need it now, or at least need to speak to the person to find out when/why it's impossible. To have to wait until they're in (if I can get hold of them then), is just not good working practice.

I think most of my time in the work place is wasted on trying to contact part-timers on multiple occasions.

very true, there's now 8 million in part time work.

add that to the 8 million unemployed and you can see what a mess this country is in.

Cleaver

Two points on this one.

Firstly, if you're the type who spends an hour a day not working and instead sits on social network sites, then you've probably always been the type who spends time doing something other than working. Making lots of coffees, nipping in to town, playing solitaire, writing a novel, chatting to colleagues. Facebook is probably just one of many things you used to waste time, i.e., the person is the problem not the social networking sites so banning them is pretty pointless.

Secondly, whilst I'm not advocating sitting on Facebook whilst at work, many office-based jobs are not the traditional 9-5 roles where you work extremely hard between these hours then go home and not think about work. I have my objectives to deliver a number of key pieces of work over the next year and I just know that I need to get that done and have a home office as well as a desk at my organisation. My boss is pretty flexible around my working hours and so am I. If I have a lot of stuff going on then I might work a few evenings one week and a good proportion of the weekend. In return my boss won't mind if at 4pm one Thursday afternoon I'm feeling burned out and fancy switching off. Bascially, as long as I get my stuff done, my employer is happy.

Maybe I'm just a goody two-shoes, but I don't even know if Facebook is blocked at work as I've never tried to get on whilst I'm there. Pretty irrelevant anyway though, as don't most people have it on their personal phones nowadays?

Cleaver

Graham_Devon wrote: »

One of the places I work at had a new manager. This new manager basically said "do what you like". We couldn't believe it. If we want to get up, go to the shop and buy a sandwich off we go. If we want to take lunch at 2.15 instead of 1pm, we do so. Obviously common sense dictates that if you are required to be at a meeting or something, you go to that meeting on time.

It's bizzare. We now all take mini breaks instead of full hours. So we actually find ourselves at our desks more, doing more work....just pop to the shops if we want to.

The 5pm drop and go routine has dissapeared. People are still around at 5.15 etc, finishing things off....they used to be out the door at 5pm and ready to walk at 4.55pm.

Basically I can do what I want, even have an Xbox360 and TV at work. It's pretty good, though the expectance is that you get whatever you have got to get done, on time and in a professional fashion. If that means working half an hour late, so be it.

The other place I work at, it's all "ooo, i stayed 10 mins late that night, wheres my time sheet" and people sitting down to another 4 hour block of work, moaning that so and so has a better model of footrest. It simply doesn't work as well. People seem determined for instance to take their lunch hour in full, regardless of what's actually going on. Problems could be happening, but it's hit 1pm, so it's out the door and everything waits until 2pm. 11am, everything stops for a 10 min coffee.

This is exactly what our place is like and exactly how I treat my team. There's no timesheets, no designated breaks, no one has to ask permission to go anywhere and no real rules on the hours you work. Why should there be? Life isn't really like that anymore.

In this environment what Graham has stated above is exactly what starts to happen. People realise they are being trusted to do the right thing and realise that the aim of the game is to be productive and get stuff done, not just look busy between 9 and 5. If one of my staff is looking burned out, knackered and fed up at 4pm then they're cool to go home. What's the point of staying if you're not feel productive? Make up the time on a day when you are feeling productive. Obviously there's limits to this way of working, but by and large it makes people happy and makes them more productive workers IMHO.

Another cultural shift I've noticed is that there is far more of a blur between home and work life, but in a good way. All staff now have a smartphone device. It means that during work hours they have a device with potentially hundreds of apps they can use. Playing games, running an eBay business, trading shares, checking e-mail and Facebook, booking holidays etc. etc. can all be done at any point. And that's fine really, as long as you're not being excessive. But the flip side is that all my staff have Blackberry's for work which is really handy. There is a bit of an unwritten rule that we just leave them on all the time, which combats the problem Pastures mentions above about part time workers. As am example, I was working at 8pm last Tuesday night on a report my boss needed the next morning. I was able to send an e-mail to my administrator, who picked it up on her Blackberry and e-mailed me a document I needed. Probably took her 30 seconds, but I was very grateful. It's all about give and take really - book a holiday at 11.30am at work, but it's then nice if you're about to send me something I need at 8pm. And modern technology helps all this happen.

Lokolo

Graham_Devon wrote: »

One of the places I work at had a new manager. This new manager basically said "do what you like". We couldn't believe it. If we want to get up, go to the shop and buy a sandwich off we go. If we want to take lunch at 2.15 instead of 1pm, we do so. Obviously common sense dictates that if you are required to be at a meeting or something, you go to that meeting on time.

It's bizzare. We now all take mini breaks instead of full hours. So we actually find ourselves at our desks more, doing more work....just pop to the shops if we want to.

The 5pm drop and go routine has dissapeared. People are still around at 5.15 etc, finishing things off....they used to be out the door at 5pm and ready to walk at 4.55pm.

Basically I can do what I want, even have an Xbox360 and TV at work. It's pretty good, though the expectance is that you get whatever you have got to get done, on time and in a professional fashion. If that means working half an hour late, so be it.

The other place I work at, it's all "ooo, i stayed 10 mins late that night, wheres my time sheet" and people sitting down to another 4 hour block of work, moaning that so and so has a better model of footrest. It simply doesn't work as well. People seem determined for instance to take their lunch hour in full, regardless of what's actually going on. Problems could be happening, but it's hit 1pm, so it's out the door and everything waits until 2pm. 11am, everything stops for a 10 min coffee.

Google have it really sorted.....just ace!
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/7290322.stm

I've just finished my placement and thats exactly how we did things. Always had Tea @ 3 in D (D block ).

But I could quite happily stay til 6-7pm doing little bits of work, I would also be on here or facebook or chatting to people on MSN.

StevieJ

I have always tended to work in that environment, the one time I worked in public industry when I was younger, it was completely the opposite. The strange thing was if you were late for work one day, the boss would insist on telling you off for being late but also paying overtime for working late to make up if you were busy ( even though you didn't want to book overtime :eek:) It was always by the book CYA.

vivatifosi

StevieJ wrote: »

I have always tended to work in that environment, the one time I worked in public industry when I was younger, it was completely the opposite.

Yep for me too. I'm much more used to the scenario Cleaver described (welcome back btw)... I think the reason that I have scheduled breaks in the library service is that much of the time is public facing, therefore you need to make sure you've scheduled enough people to be at your service points. It is very strange to me. I'm used to doing jobs where you can turn up when you want, have lunch when you want, break when you want as long as you do the job and catch up in overtime. The key issue, as I said before, is not to take the p*ss.