Nearly half of workers aged 16–24 claim they would not work for companies that impose strict policies prohibiting business-orientated social media use, according to research from recruitment solutions provider hyphen.

Out of the 16-24-year-olds surveyed, 58.7% believe that using online networking sites such as LinkedIn at work actually increases their efficiency.

As workers get older, they become less likely to reject an offer of work from an employer banning social media use, with only 28.3% of 35-44-year-olds saying they wouldn’t work in a social media free zone, alongside 19.8% of those in the 45-54 bracket.

The research also found that employer that over half (55.5%) of the total workforce claim to spend less than 10 minutes a day on their personal affairs and of this, close to a third (31.3%) do not spend any time at all using social media for personal use during work time.

Zain Wadee, managing director at hyphen, says: “For some organisations, there are benefits to having their employees use social media in a sensible way.

“There are several potential business development opportunities that social media channels could also present and managers may in fact benefit from listening to ‘Generation Facebook’, whose insights into the new shape of business to business communication could be hugely valuable for their organisation.”