Employees Tweeting At Work: Two Different Opinions [Infographic]

Tweeting while at work is a very interesting topic to me because I personally know people who have polar opposite opinions about this. A while back, I had a very dear friend of mine who was fired from his job because his employer was monitoring his personal Twitter page. After seeing the number of tweets he sent while he was at work, they cracked the whip and set an example for everyone else who worked there.

However, that was in January of 2010, and a lot has changed in the world of social media since then. A lot of companies simply block Facebook and Twitter at the office, but what kind of message does that send to the employees? After all, we are all adults here. Do we really need to be micromanaged like a bunch of children? Some employers insist the answer to that question is yes.

I suppose with all the Twitter PR disasters we’ve seen over the past few years, I can understand the concern. You can read the article on Huffington Post entitled The 8 Worst Twitter PR Fails to see just a few of them. Some Twitter addicts have even gone so far as to beat the system by creating hacks to continue tweeting at work. This particular one allows the user to tweet behind the facade of an excel spreadsheet.

I’m happy to say though that even with all this distrust, sneaking around and uncertainty about social media in the workplace, there is a light at the end of the Twitter tunnel. There are a growing number of companies that are realizing the benefits of allowing employees to tweet. The majority of employees are from a generation born and raised on technology. Some employers know that those employees will be more productive if they are allowed to use that technology as they see fit.

Neil Spencer from Column Five Media emailed me this brilliant infographic which explains the current attitudes and beliefs regarding tweeting at work. This comprehensive breakdown really lays it all out nicely. Keep in mind though; this particular topic is moving at lightening speed. The whole perception about this could be different in a matter of months. What do you think about it? Should employees be allowed to tweet while they are at work during the day? If so, should someone in a management position be assigned to monitor those tweets to protect the brand? It’s a sensitive topic for sure.