I’m a pretty staunch defender of the benefits of social media in the workplace, and research from Gartner has revealed that more companies are now allowing employees to access social media at work.

The benefits of allowing access to social media at work are numerous in my opinion, and include:

1. It increases productivity by allowing employees to give their brain a break
2. With most people owning smart phones, banning it simply doesn’t work
3. Allowing access shows you trust your employees
4. It gives more employees access to what customers are thinking, and by virtue gives customers more access to employees
5. It enables you to get knowledge and input from each employee (not to mention customers and other stakeholders)

That’s my theory anyway, but what do senior managers think?  A company called PayScale claim to have the answer.  They’ve produced an infographic (shown below), which suggests that managers are really not keen on giving employees freedom at all.

It goes on to show how few companies have a social media policy, let alone having a formal social media strategy.  In their eyes social media should be the preserve of marketing activity, which often no doubt translates into flogging your wares on these new channels.

All rather depressing really.  Be interested to hear your thoughts though, so if your employer hasn’t banned access to this blog (it’s social media after all), give me your thoughts below.

Adi Gaskell is Head of Online at the Process Excellence Network