If you're on FB, do you friend your colleagues? As a general rule I don't - I like the idea of having some kind of line between work and everything else. When people who are real-life friends leave work we usually become friends on FB to make it easier to stay in touch, but generally I learn enough about people by chatting in the office to get to know about their families, hobbies, etc. and communicating outside of that doesn't really add anything.
I did just accept a friend request from a colleague in India. We do a ton of work together via IM and tend to work strange hours (e.g. I am still working at 11 PM on a Friday in the US and he's finishing up his day at 8 AM on a Saturday in India) but will never meet in person. Our company doesn't have a photo directory so FB seemed like a natural way to put a face with the name and socialize a bit like we would in the same office.
Just wondering if that's odd? If you work for a global company, how does your company facilitate warming up those relationships across the miles? Do you think that you tend to go above and beyond (or on the flip side get others to go the extra mile for you) when you know more about your colleagues as whole people and not just their job functions? Does your company have any rules (explicit or implied) about friending colleagues?
No. I keep my personal life personal, and my work life at work. There are some people who I became friend with at my work. And AFTER I moved to a new job, where I no longer worked with that person, I friended them - because they were no longer a work colleague, and they were then just a friend.
Our company launched it's own social media site and they encourage collaboration to take place there.
There are security issues with FB and my company will sic the legal dept on you if business is discussed there.
They take corporate espionage very seriously.
You also have to watch it where government contracts are involved - sending a friendly little Christmas greeting with a Starbucks gift card between 'friends' could also be considered as bribery or conflict of interest.
I keep my work and personal life separate.
Work doesn't need to know what a basket case my sister is.
Letting the line slip between personal and professional has ruined careers and I need my job.
I'm a SAHM right now, but before that I worked for a global ocean export line. I am FB friends with most of the people I worked with in our Chicago office, but drew the line at friending managers. I didn't think it was appropriate for them to hear my political opinions, religious views, etc. My supervisor became my FB friend only after I left the company.
I found that when colleagues around the US knew me on a more personal level, we had a better working relationship (although they were pretty good to begin with). Now that I am a SAHM, I keep in contact with most of them because 1) I value them as people and 2) I may need these contacts in the future when I re-enter the workforce.
One of my customers and I have a cool FB friendship. We used to always talk about deep things on the phone, while I was inputting all the details of his orders, so now it is really cool to be able to post and discuss various articles, to see pictures of each other's families, and he keeps me in the loop about how my old company is doing with their customer service.
There was a time when my company blocked FB, because they were certain that productivity was suffering from it, but later they found out that we were MORE productive because we were using the FB chat feature to get things done, since it was more reliable than our intraweb chat.
I am not. I personally like to keep my work and private life separate. I use facebook primarily to stay in touch with family and friends overseas and I really cannot fathom including my co-workers in that circle.
When I was still working in international education we were encouraged to "friend" co-workers, students, prospectives and partners abroad to facilitate networking and client relations... I set up a completely separate facebook account for that purpose that was connected to my work email.
I know that everything on facebook is still somewhat public, so I don't post anything that would get me in trouble careerwise (not that there would be anything like that to post anyways...) but even though you cannot expect true privacy on FB, I still wouldn't "invite" anybody related to my work into my private life.
I also don't make "friends" with co-workers. I get along with people well at work, but I don't socialize with them outside of the workplace.
I have a ton of coworkers/colleagues as Facebook friends. We have offices throughout the US and Canada and since I am now in a more specialized role, I am working with people in all of the offices. I find it's easier to work with someone virtually if you know them and their personality more than just what you get through a phone call or email. Chatting on Facebook and talking about your family helps break the barriers down. I don't post anything on Facebook that I would be ashamed to say to someone's face, so I don't worry about it.
My company used to block Facebook, but has recently opened it up with a disclaimer page that pops up before that says your internet use should be primarily for business. They never had any guidelines about friending your coworkers or colleagues on the site.
Generally, I do NOT friend colleagues, except for a few that I am close friends with outside the office. Our company guidelines recommend that managers and employees not friend each other on FB to avoid uncomfortable situations. Our company also has an internal system that is a bit like FB for just our company, so we can put a face with a name for employees around the world and can share business and personal info as we wish.
It's always best to keep professional and personal lives very separate.
Remember, familiarity breeds contempt. Don't mix them.
i don't work for a global company - but i am a team lead. i did have a couple coworkers on my fb before i got the promotion, but once i did, i deleted them. the last thing i wanted was to get off after a long hard day at work, get onto fb to relax, and see the SOURCE of my frustration making cutesy comments on my kid's picture. NOPE. i spend too much energy being "professional" and "responsible" at work. if i want to say something silly or cheesy or mushy or WHATEVER -i'm not comfortable with members of my team reading it.
i have only a small few coworkers on my fb - and that is because we are friends outside of work, people i truly consider friends. but then, i also only have about 100 fb friends and i know this in itself is strange to many people. i don't do "acquaintances". that's my life on there. not everyone gets to see that. i also have all the security settings as strict as i can get them.
i'm not one to party and put stupid incriminating pics on there, or even talk about work really - but my grandmother is on there. so i treat it accordingly.
I am a high school teacher, and I am friends with many fellow teachers outside of school. We are also facebook friends. I am not facebook friends with any administrators unless they have switched schools.
Often students ask to be friends on facebook, and I refuse until after they graduate. Once they graduate, I agree to be friends with them on facebook so that I can keep up with them and see how they are doing in college and beyond. Still, I don't ever ask them to be facebook friends. I let them ask.
I don't post much on facebook, and none of it is objectionable.
I own an insurance agency so I have a separate page for my business contacts and clients. I also do a lot of networking and I add all those people on there also. That has worked for me but I don't have any co-workers. If I did, I would not want them to be my friend on my personal page unless we were actual friends. =)
I would have one for personal and one for work.
