When it comes to monitoring social media usage in the workplace, just half (50%) of companies have internet guidelines in place despite new research from A&O IT Group revealing that SME staff are spending up to 57%of their day on popular social media channels.

The national review was investigating the potential long-term impact of overlooking IT support including having adequate internet guidelines in place to reduce the risk of cybercrime that can often lead to technology breakdowns.

Despite a third (30%) of SMEs admitting that they had lost at least one full working day due to technology issues and over two-fifths of them (42%) admitting that have lost income due to IT issues, the research highlighted that over half (54%) of SMEs across the UK don’t have annual IT check-ups that could identify and prevent potential system issues.

The survey from the specialist SME and small business IT support service indicated that Facebook is the biggest draw on time for SME business owners employees, with 33% saying their staff accessed it during their working day, compared to 14 per cent for Twitter and 10 per cent Instagram.

The findings follow the launch of A&O IT’s specialist SME and small business IT support service in the UK market. The new technology enables SMEs to tap into the same levels of expertise and experience enjoyed by big businesses across the globe. This includes a complete managed IT service through to crisis recovery, cyber security, remote data back-up, annual IT reviews, hardware management and cloud services.

(Source: A&O IT Group)