Software security company Clearswift has unveiled the latest edition of its global annual research report, WorkLifeWeb, outlining attitudes towards social media and personal technology in today's workplace.

This year's research has highlighted a new phase in the social media journey showing that just as Australians demonstrate new levels of awareness, self-education and self-regulation, more and more workplaces are choosing to lockdown access to the 'social web', despite its obvious organisational benefits.

An overwhelming sense of caution is emanating from Australian organisations when it comes to social media. In Clearswift's 2010 WorkLifeWeb report, 20% of Australian organisations actively discouraged or blocked the use of social media tools, yet in the latest research this has increased with one third (33%) of Australian managers now confirming their organisation discourages or blocks Web 2.0 technologies. This comes despite the use of such tools (Skype, LinkedIn, Twitter, YouTube and Facebook) on the increase since 2010.

In addition, 89% say data loss/security concerns are preventing technology adoption and almost half of managers surveyed (43%) confirmed a security incident had taken place as a result of using an internet-based application, with more than half reprimanding staff for using social media in the workplace. Despite this, 48% of Australian organisations still see web collaboration as critical to future company success and 30% of organisations have increased their investment in social media over the past 12 months.

Social security
The good news is that education and effective security policy are making inroads into employee social media usage. There is a marked increase in the awareness of appropriate content and behaviour since last year in that half of employees were previously happy to discuss a work-related matter on a social networking site, versus 72% which would not do so in today's research.

The number of those which regretted sending content via email or a social networking site is also down to 16% in 2011 from 29% in 2010.

Furthermore, two thirds of respondents said they always think about security when using social media tools, by far the highest of all countries surveyed. Australia also scored the highest in this area when conducting financial transactions online (77%). However, while three quarters of employees surveyed understand the dos and don'ts of social media etiquette when representing their company online, 38.5% of Australians believe it is entirely their employer's responsibility to ensure web and email security are guaranteed - the highest of all countries surveyed.

Work-life blur
The WorkLifeWeb survey shows Australians, known for having the longest working hours in the world, have laudably managed to improve their work life balance, with 35% of employees saying they now have 'some' or 'a lot' of work-life overlap, down from 48% in 2010. This overlap largely mirrors the trends for the US, UK and Germany, and comes despite the massive increase in the use of smartphones for business (45% up) and tablets/iPad (34.5%) this year.

Notwithstanding the growth in personal devices, three quarters of Australians say the length of the working day is not impacted by the use of tablets and smartphones. This result could point to the fact that Australian employees are getting better at separating their work and home life. Alternatively, it could mean that mobile devices, and the associated work patterns they promote, are so ubiquitous that it is becoming more difficult for people to notice the blurring boundaries between home and work.

Smart policy
On the increase of personal devices in the workplace, more than half of organisations have moved quickly to include the use these devices in their security policy, and also have the technology in place to manage social media use securely. One fifth of employees believe that social media makes them better at their job though 70% believe it can be distracting, suggesting they are working harder to monitor and manage their own productivity.