Sure, letting people use social networking sites at work brings might come with a risk of productivity going down the drain. But if you ban them outright, are you and your employees missing out on some positive uses?

According to a study by IT security firm Sophos, 43 percent of employees said they were completely barred from using Facebook at work. It isn’t hard to see why. A survey of British office workers found that they spent, on average, a half hour of each typical work day on Facebook (read more about those studies here).

But is an outright ban a good idea? There are a number of things that can hurt productivity (like cell phones or e-mail, for example) but they aren’t necessarily outlawed automatically - generally, if someone isn’t meeting performance standards, it’s the fault of the person rather than whatever he or she is wasting time on.

A better strategy, then, might be to address Facebook abuse as problems arise. Having a policy to generally limit personal use of the Internet at work will give you the ability to put your foot down if people can’t control themselves.

Also, what was most interesting about the Sophos survey was that only seven percent of the employees said they’re companies gave them access to the site for “work-related use.” This subject is open to debate, but it seems like the site has plenty of businesses uses from recruitment to sales and marketing to enabling communication and collaboration among the workforce.

But what do you think? Do Facebook and other social networking sites have a place in the office? Give us your take in the comments section.