Dear Employers, stop being the enemy of growth

Dear employers

Over the last few years the use of internet in Kenya has taken off. Now the stats show that over 8.5million Kenyans are online and 22million mobile phone subscribers.  I took a few hours every day in the last few days to check how you operate. Actually the right words are I asked your employees on how you operate and your structure.  On my research I found out that you all have websites, some of you have facebook fan/like pages , some have twitter pages , some have blogs.

Great.

Now tell me , when you have a website what do you expect next? I guess you expect it to be visited by your clients, prospective clients and even possible idle passerby. I also guess that you dream to have the most visited website in the land. That is why you spent all the time making noise for the tech guy who did the site or who manage the content to ensure it is the first among the equals when googled. Due to your high ambitions , you earned my respect and i must admit that i  like you very much… i do..but i have questions for you..

1. Do you allow your employees to be online? Mmmh I know some of you  don’t..stupid question!

2. For those who do,  do you allow your employees to visit other websites apart from your very own? Again just for fun i will continue with my questions..

3. Do you allow your employees to visit Facebook or Twitter or any social networking sites?

4. Who do you expect to visit  your website?

Stay with me.  I know you block most of the websites from being visited by your employees. I do understand where you are coming from. The only thing  I don’t understand is whether you have read the bible where they say “Do Unto Others As You Would Have Them Do Unto You”.  Even If you don’t believe that, I still think you understand the people’s nature or how they operate. Straight to the point you want people to visit your site, your facebook page and your twitter account but yourself you are not allowing anybody associated with you to visit others websites or fanpages?  How convenient is that!

Probably you  have not realized this, the time for brochures are over, now it is about being online. Your clients are online, your communication is through online, the opportunities are online and the route to new clients is online.  The real validation of an organization or a company these days is not the physical office but the website.  In that, you have to change your old habits and allow your people to be online.

Back to social networking sites, because this where I know, there is a big controversy. I forgot to congratulate you for you know, not being left behind . You have a facebook page, you have a twitter account….not bad. But for heaven sake stop blocking the same websites from being accessed in your company. We all understand that people can waste valuable time on social media but also remember this,  non of your employees even the most dedicated ones work for maximum 8 hours nonstop. In between they deceive you and play solitaire, take a long unnecessary walk to the loo, send work unrelated smses, emails , gossip about you.  Believe me all these take place despite you strict rules and definitely under your watch.

May i bring to your collective attentions that  some studies have shown that having access to social networking websites, Blogs yeah Kachwanya.com and even Youtube can make workers more productive. Access to social media can provide a much needed break during the day and remove the stress of being disconnected from friends and families.   Remember also that no matter how much you try your employees, yes your employees still find their way around the blockage and restrictions to get online.

The shout about the local contents get us nowhere if people are not allow to access them. And by the way your company products and services can be classified as  local contents! What do you think about that?

Yours……..me

Kennedy Kachwanya1087 Posts

--- Kennedy Kachwanya is a technology blogger interested in mobile phones both smart and dumb, mobile apps, mobile money, social media, startups ecosystem and digital Savannah. New media must not forget the strength of old tech.

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