Give staff Facebook or risk losing them

Ross Dawson in his blog "Trends in the Living Network" pointed out this article in the Daily Telegraph (Australia) titled Give Staff Facebook or risk losing them about construction company John Holland initially withdrawing Facebook access to its staff, but several weeks later reinstating it due to fears that it would lead to talent not wanting to work in the company.

I have been alluding to this for a while in my views on the Rise of the Participation Culture and my previous post Gen Y and Beyond. I would take this one step further and say that it is not only applicable to social network sites, but all Web 2.0 applications that this generation use to connect and network. The war for talent is such that this does become a business issue and not a "nice to have". It also raises the question - would you not prefer to have your people participating in Web 2.0 apps to connect in a supportive environment behind the firewall, or risk the fact that it is human nature to find ways of connecting anyway - these will be the apps which have been restricted inside the company being used outside the company for business purposes anyway.