A survey with 1400 CIO’s by Robert Half indicates that 54% of interviewed companies completely prohibit social media.

“Using social networking sites may divert employees’ attention away from more pressing priorities, so it’s understandable that some companies limit access,” said Dave Willmer, executive director of Robert Half Technology.

A few decades ago the same reasoning took place regarding phones. Normal employees were not trusted with a phone on their desk.

When I look around, I see that the companies that are consequently successful are open and interact with their environment. I bet that the average company allowing their employees to access social media is client focused and that the average company not allowing access has operational excellence as a greater priority than their clients.