Bosses who ban social media at work use sites more than underlings

Published Jul 2, 2014

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When it comes to employees using Facebook at work, it appears many bosses follow the line of “do as I say, not as I do”.

Research has discovered that the employers who are most strict about their staff using social media are the worst culprits for logging on in the office. The study also found that men are worse than women, and educated people are the most prolific users.

This could be linked to the kind of attitude that gets bosses to powerful positions, a university study of 11 000 workers claims.

According to the research, high-flying executives have the most negative attitudes about private use of social media in the workplace, believing younger employees waste time checking their feeds and tweets. But, because they spend so much time in the office, this leaves employers little time to socialise face to face, meaning they turn to social media to communicate with others.

They also find it harder to separate work from leisure.

Psychologists, led by Dr Cecilie Schou Andreassen from Norway’s University of Bergen, said: “It is interesting that top executives, who are negative to private web-surfing during working hours, are the ones who surf the most for private purposes when at work.”

Bosses, perhaps knowing from experience how easy it is to waste time on surfing the net for personal use, would clamp down on employees doing it. But they could do it themselves because they were the boss, she added. – Daily Mail

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