Managing in the Internet Age

The amount of distractions in the workplace can be overwhelming at times. From facebook, to twitter to live news feeds, its amazing how anyone completes work nowadays. As a manager this can be challenging when the staff you are managing are constantly being distracted. It is imperative to set up ground rules to make sure during business hours, your employees are doing their jobs and tasks at hand. Making the rules clear is important. Especially in the peak days of social media.

Also in regular meetings with staff and employees it is important to remind the employees that the distraction time should be kept to a minimum. Making the ground rules clear but in a nice way.

If a specific employee is using social media way too much, and is constantly ignoring the warnings, then the manager should have a talk with them, a one to one talk and see what the issues are. It’s a good idea to keep a file on the person of your records of interaction with them, with dates, etc. A good manager should find an effective way to communicate with the employee if they are not following the rules, and guide them to the right path, to ensure they are productive and following the guidelines set in place.

Also, one other point I’d like to make. Having a written company policy copy at all the employees desks is important. That way you have something to reference to if any deviations should arise.

-Shawn Adli