The CX Blog

The bottom line for managers at work: learn to love social media and figure out ways to make it work for you.

That’s the news from Reuters today in an article entitled Social Networking Good for Businesses

The report by Demos said encouraging employees to use networking technologies to build relationships and closer links with colleagues and customers could help businesses rather than damage them.

The report indicates that the more difficult but ultimately better route for handling the growth and utilization of social networking is to understand how it’s being used, leverage the best of it, plan on some parameters around its use, and let your employees have at it.  Though it’s obvious some of those parameters would involve productivity and ability to meet deadlines, the British think tank doesn’t offer any guidance other than what to avoid:

“In today’s difficult business environment, the instinctive reaction can be to batten down the hatches and return to the traditional ‘command and control’ techniques that enable managers to closely monitor and measure productivity,” he said.

May the force be with you.