Recently, I gave a presentation at a major pharmaceutical company in Switzerland. The executive room was very nice overlooking the city, but best of all, they had chocolate all over the place. Rock on my Swiss!
My colleagues and I presented research on the so-called "Generation Y" (ppl roughly born between 1980-1995) in which we provided an age based analysis for older generations. Simply idea was that they wanted to understand the youth of today. One particular area I emphasized was the fact of creating restrictions at the workplace, such as blocking social sites like Facebook, do not make employees more effective. I actually argued that it creates negative attitude and gives workers a bad taste in their mouth.
The executives were skeptical and had a hard time thinking that this could be correct. Many people believe that Facebook and other social site slow down productivity. As I use the web a lot, I'm not completely convinced.
I argued that people can be as effective at work even if they can access social sites like Facebook or Youtube. I argued that the a welcoming work environment where people can feel at ease actually encourages workers to get their work done so that they can maintain their job. If employees are able to enjoy work and the environment, then they will be more motivated to do their tasks.
Unfortunately I didn't have any statistical analysis to prove this.
Well thank you University of Melbourne!
Apparently people using the internet for personal usage like checking Facebook are 9% more productive than people that I would label are "in prison"
"Short and unobtrusive breaks, such as a quick surf of the Internet,
enables the mind to rest itself, leading to a higher total net
concentration for a days' work, and as a result, increased
productivity,".....
(click for Yahoo article)It's a small case study, but I think it's make the point.....Restrictions do not motivate
