Recruiters talk a lot about how to use social media/social networking to step up your recruiting game. Let me ask you a question though – for the HR or recruiting pro who also does more than talent acquisition – let’s say for you generalists or business partners who dabble in employee relations… what happens once you recruit someone via social networking and you’ve got them in the door? Your candidates-turned-employees were on some kind of social networking site when you found them and today, as they sit 20 feet down the hall from you in their nice, little cubicle, they are still online. They are still on LinkedIn, Facebook, MySpace, and/or Twitter. And guess what? They’re on these sites during the day – during work hours. Does this freak you out at all? And is it freaking your managers out?

We’re more connected than ever with one another. And this is a good thing. Your employees are collaborating and building stronger bonds with each other in part because of social networks. Engaged Employees have friends and strong relationships at work – and believe it or not, FB and other social networks are helping to solve the engagement puzzle. Even if you don’t have an employer group or network set up on FB, I guarantee your staff have still found each other and are friends on FB. Take me, for example – of my 179 friends on FB, 29 of them are work colleagues. And I’m a FB novice – the average Facebook user has 281 friends… imagine what their colleagues-as-friends stats are like.

But, here’s the flip side of the issue – we can, and we do, track each other online. And this can cause some problems. A few examples:

–A manager hears about their employee’s “status update” on FB from someone who is friends with them on FB. Their status update says something disgruntled, and they updated it during work hours. The manager wants the employee to remove or change their status update. –A colleague notices that another colleague makes a lot of updates or posts a lot on FB during work hours… and they know this because of the date/time stamp on FB’s news feeds. “Why are they spending so much time online, during work hours?” they ask. And should this be raised in their performance review?

In both of these scenarios, it was a gen X or baby boomer who raised the issue about a millennial. This shouldn’t be surprising to you – after all, you’re a savvy, upscale HR pro and know that millennials don’t distinguish between work and play during the day – the lines are blurred. They are the ultimate multitaskers and have become adept at switching seamlessly between professional and personal throughout the day or night. In these two situations I share, they weren’t saying anything disparaging, nor confidential on FB. So the magical answer to both of the questions raised? A big fat N-O. No, you shouldn’t make the employee change their status update. No, don’t raise FB usage in their performance review.

HR and IT pros both have struggled with the question of whether to allow access to or the use of social networks in the workplace. Let’s come up with a policy and regulate use or ban it! But I’d argue that this isn’t the appropriate response. More rules and policies won’t fix the problem. And that is, if you consider this even being a problem. Are they getting the job done? If yes, well then…

Besides, to recruit using social networks and then try to ban or reprimand the use of such during work hours? Well, that would make you a bit of a hypocrite. But hey, that’s just my point of view and I’m a millennial, after all, so maybe my perspective is colored. You tell me what you think though and while you’re doing that, I’ll be over on FB checking to see what my friends are up to on the live feed.