“All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy” is a proverb that can be used to emphasize how important rest and play time is towards a person, this is no different even at work. Facebook, Snapchat, and Instagram are examples of different Social Networking applications, with each and everyone of them becoming a part of our everyday lives. It’s always there for us during our free times, and bored times. Social Networks allow for a source of relaxation, a time to take a break and through them we find a source of fun within all the stress and tensions of working daily. Therefore, employers should allow its employees to use social networks because it’s an important aspect for their wellbeing, creates a fun working environment, and is essential to their everyday lives with its many different functions. Just as long as long as its usage is appropriate, considerate, and fair.
Workplaces, at times can be that tiring, and boring place with nothing but work to do. Social Networks allow employees to at suitable hours be able to destress and take some time off work. A time where employees can get sometime to themselves to relax and scroll through the social networks to pastime. This allows for employees to get their rest through short breaks, ensuring employees are not working non-stop without some rest. Rest is extremely important towards the wellbeing of the employees to ensure they do not get sick. It may then develop into many other problems, one of them being the lack of staff members due to sickness if not enough rest is given during work hours, thus directly affecting the productivity, and cause less work to be done affecting the companies’ revenues. As we all know, the number one priority of a business is to earn money, so this is a major reason to why employers should allow employees to use social networks as means of rest and relaxation for a short period before work is continued. Also, previous research done by scientists showed that human brains are not able to keep constant concentration and still be efficient for long periods of time. This is where my argument comes in perfectly. Like mentioned previously rest is needed to allow for both the body and mind to take a break. In this case, research has shown that short rests allow employees to have better focus and concentration when continuing work later on, thus producing better quality work for the employers. Focus and concentrations all correlates towards the quality and success of the business, which is why I feel that employees should be allowed to use social networks at the workplace.
Secondly, allowing social networking at the workplace could potentially create a fun working environment for everyone. Don’t you want to go to work everyday with a smile and have the excitement to start work? Who wouldn’t? Which is exactly why employers should allow its employees to use social media. Just picture yourself working at a place like that, whenever you are stressed out on a certain task at work, you could just whip out your phone and take a short look at friend’s posts and memes that they potentially tagged you in. How happy would that be? Perhaps even causing you to smile through all the hustle and stress you're going through at that particular moment. Happiness is very important for everything. Studies have shown that when happy, many things can be done with motivation, ease and at a high quality. When happy, interactions between each other cause others to also be happy, and moods lighten up. With this, it would create a much more relaxed working environment as it has all the fun and freedom given while also having its other rules. Allowing employees to use social networks does not only make them happy but it also does much more than that. It would allow for development of trust between the company and its employees, entrusting that with this benefit the employees do not abuse it and be unproductively lazy. Not only does it help with trusting each other at work, but it also would develop a strong communicable relationship between the employers and employees which does wonders for the company. With a good, strong relationship established between the 2, the company is able to work together to produce quality work, and like mentioned before it links up with the success of the company essential for being more profitable thus also allowing at the same time for employees to earn more too.
Lastly, as we all know, social networks have become a part of our everyday lives. We always manage to squeeze in time for it regardless of our busy daily schedules. For most people it’s the first thing we look at, and the last thing we look at each day. It’s become a norm for us to always check our social networks at any and every possible time or place. Some may consider it an addiction but sadly this is how it is now. Which is why employees whom go to work, regardless of its location should be allowed to check their social networks as long as its usage is considerate. This way, employees no longer have to secretly use social networks, and as long as usage during work hours are appropriate, it is able to satisfy our daily social networking needs. Nowadays, social networks provide all sorts of information, from jokes and memes to friends’ update posts to everyday news thats happening right now. Our need to check social networks each day does not just always mean fun and games but also to keep updated on what’s happening around the world. This can be very beneficial to us, as social networks can keep us happy during stressful, and busy times but also keep us educated at the same time. Allowing for employees to also expand their general knowledge which can come in handy at anytime at work. But what we use it most for is communication. Just with a stable connection, any message can be sent instantly to anyone anywhere without the need to send text messages anymore. This can be used to communicate with family, friends and even those at work, all at the ease of social networks. Everything is extremely convenient with all the different functions that social networks have, it can be used for many different tasks, which can be essential for us in our daily lives not to mention at work.
Now… with every good side, there is always a bad side to it too. In order for this to work and be enjoyable for everyone, some basic common sense must be adhered by all employees. When given such freedom by employers, they are trusting for employees to not abuse the freedom given by them. To not constantly from time to time always be on social networks, and wasting countless hours just sitting and doing nothing but be on social networks. This is something we’ll always definitely see with some companies who have employees with no discipline and are not able to control their usage on social networks. There is just no way around it, there will always be someone who’s lazy and wants the easy road to everything. Which is why for this to work, simple rules must be followed by the employees, such as only using social networks during break times or at times where no work is needed to be done, and/or during considerate times where one really needs a release of stress and relax for a bit. Another problem is that with the freedom of social network use, most employees often abuse it and thus the loss of productivity. Not much work will be done by the employees, directly affecting the company and its profiting. This being a major problem as businesses naturally want to maximize their profits, yet with those who are not able to follow rules, freedom is destined to fail. Lastly, with the freedom of social network use by employees it puts the companies network security at risk as it is exposed to all sorts of viruses. This can be both extremely dangerous and risky as all company data and information can be stolen, and all be lost. To prevent such problems, the company has to spend extra budget to upgrade the network security and also maintain it from time to time, thus extra costs resulting to less profits.
In conclusion, I think that employees should be allowed to access social networks at the workplace because of all the benefits it brings towards the company. I personally think that happiness, and motivation is very important at a workplace. With motivated and happy employees it benefits the employers a lot, as they are then able to be productive and help employers be profitable and successful which is always a businesses’ number 1 priority. Yet after saying all this, there is no perfect solution to this issue as there are always individuals who do not like following rules. There is no way to stop laziness. When worse comes to worst, some employees may even secretly use their phones to access social networks and still be unproductive without anyone noticing. There are always employees who want to take advantage and abuse the benefits given to them, which is why in my opinion to just allow employees the access to social networks. This can really allow for those who really adhere to the rules to fully enjoy its benefits and advantages as mentioned above. It’s jam packed with benefits and advantages and can really make a difference, but like every other thing in life, use in moderation.