In today’s digital business world, social media has brought huge benefits to the modern businesses as a branding and marketing tool. In organizations where there are no strict mobility policies defined, employees make use of the corporate devices for their personal use such as checking personal emails and accessing social media. The organizations face numerous risks from these practices ranging from distractions, loss of productivity, misuse of company resources to corporate data leakage. In fact, 75% of Americans¹ claim that digital notifications, most commonly attributed to social media hamper their productivity. In this article, we will discuss why blocking social media access in the workplace is essential and how to do it with Scalefusion.
Read more: How to Hide Status and Notification Bar in Android Devices using Scalefusion
Social media and distractions
According to the study done by TeamLease², due to no policies of blocking social media access at the workplace or on corporate devices, around 32% of the total time spent on social media during working hours is personal indicating a huge loss of official resources and productivity. In fact, 13% of the total productivity is lost owing to social media access alone.
Further, as per the study, apart from the loss of productivity, due to zero or limited social media restrictions, it has resulted in an increase in loss of confidential information, defamation, misinformation and employee solicitation. Thus, it becomes extremely critical to block social media access at the workplace and from the corporate-owned devices.
A detailed drill down on the nature of usage and time spent, according to the report, Facebook is the most visited social media platform. Out of the 62% of employees who accessed social media during working hours, nearly 83% of them spend significant time browsing Facebook.
Summarising major risks that a company may face with employees’ use of social media on corporate devices
- Misuse of work time
- Misuse of company resources
- A risk to the company network and corporate data
- Disclosure of confidential or other non-public information
Using a company-owned smartphone to access social media, has a risk of excessive data use, or access to inappropriate social media websites and/or apps which poses the risk of introducing possible malicious software or other rogue applications, especially which involves downloading files. Hence, besides having effective social media ethics and compliance initiatives, there must be a proper Mobile Device Management solution like Scalefusion for all the corporate-owned mobile devices. Let us have a look at the various features of Scalefusion that help in blocking social media access in the workplace.
Scalefusion for blocking social media access in the workplace
Application & website whitelisting
Scalefusion can help in restricting social media apps and whitelisting the websites on all corporate-owned devices. IT admins can block the non-business apps on the corporate-owned devices. With application whitelisting, employees cannot access those apps on the corporate devices and as a result, it avoids loss of productivity & risks to corporate data and brings better control over data costs.
Read more: What is Website Whitelisting: Why and How to Do It?
Data protection
When the employees use their personal devices for work, blocking social media access on BYOD is not possible. But to protect the corporate data from being misused, IT admins can enforce several data protection policies on the BYO devices to ensure that corporate data is not accessible from personal devices. In Android and iOS devices, these settings can help in preventing the copy between personal and corporate apps. On Windows 10 devices, admins can configure Windows Information Protection Policy to protect the corporate data.
Tracking data usage
IT administrators can keep a close eye on the data usage (mobile data and WiFi) on corporate devices working within or outside the corporate network parameter. IT admins can generate app-wise reports to understand which apps take most of the employee data and time and make amendments in the application policy. IT teams can also remotely monitor the registered devices from the single web-based dashboard and IT admin can get the real-time status of each of these devices.
To Summarize
Social media can be of great advantage when used judiciously. When employees use their personal devices for work or work remotely, enforcing social media restrictions is limited to corporate devices only. Building an organizational culture to drive efficiency is the key to improving employee productivity. But for exclusively protecting corporate data, mobile device management is the way to go.
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