Web Surfing At Work – Part 1
August 27, 2008
In the last ten years, Internet access at the office has gone from rare to omnipresent. With it came new problems for managers — such as employees using the corporate network to visit adult websites, download pirated software and waste corporate bandwidth, not to mention recreational surfing.
Here are some interesting and sobering statistics. 30-40 percent of Internet use in the workplace isn’t related to business. 70% of all Web traffic occurs during business hours. Twenty-five of the most visited sites during work hours include Amazon.com, eBay and Travelocity. I suppose that people are mostly bidding on new staplers for the office, watching educational streaming media and buying plane tickets for their next business trip.
Experts say employees surfing the Web from the office costs corporate America more than $1 billion a year. This is mostly attributable to lower productivity levels and bandwidth expenses.
Depending on who you ask, it’s reported that employees spend between one and three hours a day surfing the Web on personal business at work. According to the 2007 results of the annual Electronic Monitoring and Surveillance Survey, the percentage of employers monitoring their employees’ Internet use increases each year.
From the survey results, 66% of employers are monitoring Internet connections. And, 65% of companies use software to block connections to inappropriate Web sites - a 27% increase since 2001. Additionally, employers are monitoring the use of email and telephones.
Employers who block access to employees surfing the Web at work are concerned about employees visiting adult sites with sexual, romantic, or pornographic content (96%); game sites (61%); social networking sites (50%); entertainment sites (40%); shopping/auction sites (27%); and sports sites (21%). In addition, some companies use URL blocks to stop employees from visiting external blogs (18%).
Employers believe this employee surveillance is necessary for employee productivity, legal reasons, the safety of company information, and to prevent an environment of harassment. According to Manny Avramidis, senior vice president of global human resources for the AMA: “There are primary reasons why employers monitor employee Internet behavior at work, depending on the organization and its employees. Employee productivity is key. Some companies will say that trade secret issues are important, not necessarily because employees intentionally share company information, but employees may not realize the importance to competitors of such items as new product features and organization charts.”
More Employer Concerns About Surfing the Web at Work
Workers’ e-mail and other electronically stored information create written business records that are the electronic equivalent of DNA evidence. 24% of employers have had email subpoenaed by courts and regulators and another 15% have battled workplace lawsuits triggered by employee email, according to the 2006 AMA / ePolicy research.
It pays to know your employer’s policies about Internet and email use. Because the percentage of employers monitoring computer behavior is rising every year, what you don’t know or pay attention to, could hurt your standing with your employer. Most employers don’t mind “some” or a small amount of computer use for personal business at work. Know how your employer defines “some.”
Next week we’ll look at some employers who consider surfing at work no big deal.
Ken Ivey is a veteran technology addict, consultant, author, web designer, and President of MidTN Technology, a marketing and web design firm. For more information, call 615-278-9324 or visit www.kenivey.com
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Ken: If an employer monitors (or reserves the right to monitor) employee e-communication, the employer may be wise to so inform the employee — repetitively. –Ben http://hack-igations.blogspot.com/2008/06/employee-imtexte-mailvoicecomputerinter.html
Absolutely. We assume an employer would communicate policy to employees (if they expect them to adhere to it).
[...] Last week we looked at concerns about Web Surfing at work. Here’s another take: Let Employees Surf From Work - They’ll Make It Up [...]