My comments on the Unstructure Blog: Is social networking at work good for employee engagement?

Earlier today I commented on a  post by Julian Birkinshaw on the always interesting blog Unstructure. Julian posed this interesting question: Is social networking at work good for employee engagement?. Julian talks about the ridiculous practice of companies who ban use of social networks in the workplace.

This was perhaps prompted by Nielsen research that was released recently: 
        "The average U.S. worker spends 5hrs a month visiting social networks at the office" (per @briansolis)

Julian goes on to say that

"... as many as two-thirds of UK companies have banned employees from on-line social networking during the working day. It is seen as a time-wasting activity, a breeder of gossip, and a security concern.

This type of knee-jerk reaction is understandable, because it happens every time new technology enters the workplace. But it is also dead wrong. Research has uncovered an important correlation between commitment to a job and social interaction in the workplace. [...] Not only are the media for social interaction changing, we also have a new generation of employees – the so-called Generation Y or Millenials- with new demands and expectations about what they can expect from a job"

He than lists three reasons why companies are mistaken not to allow social networking in the workplace. The arguments are somewhat convincing, but the third one triggered me pursue the point into a logical extension. Here is part of the comment I posted:

"...but I think you may have underrepresented another angle to your question: how can social networks actually foster collaboration, distributed knowledge and collective intelligence within the workplace (this would fit under your number 3)? The very opportunitiy that Gen Y – or Digital Natives – come into the workplace with expectations that they can continue to use social networks in the workplace is that they are familiar with using these tools and will embrace social networks – not Facebook, but company-centric networks – for business purpose if offered by their employer. Many organizations have embarked on this path, ranging from NASA (”Spacebook”) to IBM to Nokia (currently rolling out “Nokia Spere”). Digital Natives will find it very discomforting and disorienting that while they use social networks and other social media tools proficiently for managing their personal lives, they have to rely on old-fashioned telephone directories, intranets and the like when in their working environment they need to find peers, experts, colleagues when searching for information, sharing insights and collaborating across intra-company boundaries. A whole new generation of “enterprise2.0″ software tools is available to this end, and company culture and leadership styles are slowly starting to change to successfully adopt these technologies. Offering employees these tools – especially employees of the Digital Native generation – will increase their productivity, but also enhance their engagement with the organization through forming denser and more meaningful connections and networks with organizational peers."

Does this seem like a stretch? I don't think so. Smart companies and organizations are leading the way. IBM, Best Buy, Nokia and NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, who created Spacebook - "a homegrown social-networking application that provides all NASA employees with the types of features found in Facebook but in a secure environment." NASA's CIO Linda Cureton states explicitely the objective for this aptly named initiative:

“One of the most amazing things about these Web 2.0 technologies, and the greatest value to NASA, is the ability to help us create a culture of engagement and collaboration that makes each individual employee much more effective,”

What do you think? Do you have experience with employee engagement positively correlating with company sponsored social networking tools? Do you have experience with the opposite? Digital Natives becoming disengaged with employers that continue to live in the 1.0 world?