Most companies disable instant messaging / chat messengers mainly because a) it is percieved that they lead to loss of employee productivity, b) they hog bandwidth.

New here comes a new study that turns this theory on it’s head. According to R. Kelly Garrett from the Ohio State University, using Instant Messengers led to more online conversations, which were a lot briefer than other forms of communications, such as email, telephone/mobile, as well as personal chats. The study involved 912 people who worked at least 30 hours a week and used a computer for at least five hours everyday.

According to Garrett,

We found that the effect of IM is actually positive. People who used IM reported that they felt they were being interrupted less frequently. The key to unlocking IM’s effects lies in how people are using the technology. We find that employees are quite strategic in their use of instant messaging. They are using it to check in with their colleagues to find out if they’re busy before interrupting them in a more intrusive way.

These findings have been published in the latest issue of the Journal of Computer Mediated Communication.

 I’m not sure how many companies, atleast in India, are going to take these findings very seriously. Most of them have not only banned IMs, but also access to free email sites like Gmail, Yahoo, Hotmail etc along with social networking sites like Orkut and Facebook, with probable exceptions being Skype and LinkedIn.

What is your company’s policy in this regard?