Jessica Miller-Merrell wants employers to stop forcing their employees to be phony. And this includes restricting and over-managing their use of social media in the workplace.

“I believe that there’s an intersection forming between technology, tools, social media, mobile and culture, all related around work. Those companies that adopt these technologies, they’re allowing for their employees to be themselves, to encourage relationships, engagement, conversation, feedback and creativity,” says this SPHR, author, HR strategist and CEO of Xceptional HR.

This includes allowing employees to access social media for personal use at work, but she concedes that it should be monitored. Employers who are worried about employees being on social media at work may be worried about productivity, she says, but there are ways to address this.

“If they deny access to the tools we can find access to the tools. We just use a medium that’s unrestricted,” she says, pointing out that an employee using a smartphone to update his or her Facebook status has to work on a tiny screen, which takes longer than doing it on a work computer. If productivity is an issue, she says, allow them to get into and out of social media sites quickly.

But many employers are reluctant to allow personal use of work tools for a variety of reasons. And restricting social media use is one way to enforce this.

Monitoring and Education

“I think they need to open up Facebook at a minimum,” says Miller-Merrell. “But they should be monitoring the amount of time that people are spending on it.” She also suggests that employers educate their employees about responsible use of social media at work.

“Sometimes it’s not just a Facebook issue or a social media issue, it’s a performance issue. It’s just like any other thing they’d be abusing,” she adds, citing smoke breaks as an example. In the case of an employee whose lengthy breaks are affecting his or her performance, an employer would simply address the problem by talking to the employee. Social media is no different. “ It’s not so much about social media but it’s about work performance and productivity,” she says.

Social Media Risks

In addition to worries about productivity, employers may also be concerned about the risks of employees posting information about the company on a public forum. Along with brand and security risks, there have been cases in the courts where employees have been terminated for social media activity and filed lawsuits for unfair dismissal, sometimes winning.

It all comes down to education and monitoring. “Spend time training, talking about the social media policy, then periodically audit,” says Miller-Merrell. “You can set up a keyword feed and see what’s happening,” she says, but considers asking employees to ‘friend’ a generic HR account a “ridiculous waste of time”.

Engagement and Performance

Miller-Merrell wants employers to allow their employees to be themselves, and that means allowing them to use technology to express themselves. It also means allowing flexibility in working conditions. She calls the concept “Workology”.

“You spend so much time trying to be that ‘professional’ person. We waste energy trying to be someone else... We can’t let people see our personal side of us at work. By the time we get home we’re too tired to be ourselves,” she says.

Taking a more flexible and open approach to working environments, including allowing social media use, translates into a happier, more engaged and productive work force, argues Miller-Merrell.

“Happy people work better,” she says.