By BLR Founder and CEO Bob Brady
My recent column “Software Police: Best Way to Curb Webslackers?” generated interesting opinions. Most agreed that webslacking is an insidious problem, but two said to hold off on that monitoring—it’s no good for morale.
Here’s a sampling of readers’ reactions:
It is akin to an addiction
“The problem was rampant at our company, mostly with the customer service staff in between orders. We notified them that we were monitoring their Internet use and there was still abuse. It is akin to an addiction. Sometimes it was 2 hours a day. We were forced to install blocking software. They complained loud and long about not having access to their personal email, but the monitoring showed surfing drastically reduced, nearly eliminated.”
Inordinate amount of time on MySpace
“Our biggest problem comes from employees spending time on the ‘MySpace’ websites. The surprising thing to me is that I thought this was strictly a young person’s phenomenon. However, I was wrong in that assumption. We have a number of employees who have been disciplined for spending an inordinate amount of time on said site.”
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Found a lot of violations when we installed monitoring software
“My research indicates that some industries have documented personal Internet usage to be up to 3-4 hours per day. That’s pretty egregious time wasting. I think it warrants IT intervention and use of monitoring software. We found a lot of violations when we installed monitoring software.”
Privilege becomes a right
“Supervisors do (or should) know the work behaviors of their employees and should address abuse of any kind. It is, however, necessary to have some kind of policy in place for supervisors to refer to, something that states that business equipment and business technology is for business use. All of our employees are required to sign an acknowledgment of our IT security policy during new-hire orientation. Even though there may be some universal fudging permitted or at least tolerated, the abuser should always be expecting to be counseled for misuse of business time, equipment, and technology. If a supervisor is slack in addressing abuse, the abuser may erroneously assume that a privilege, once granted, becomes a right.”
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Standard ‘wiggle room’ is universally acceptable
“At our place of business, most employees operate mentally at a professional level and will take care of the business’s business; however, we cannot assume that everyone does. Therefore, our IT department is involved in controlling abuse by installing Websense ® limits to Internet access. Supervisors and the CEO must approve access to sites that would normally fall outside the realm of business. By using such controls, our employees understand that Internet use is monitored. That alone is an inhibitor to abuse. If employees know that there are limits, they won’t be inclined to abuse the standard ‘wiggle room’ that is universally acceptable. If they do, issue a stern warning that repeated abuse will lead to termination, and then follow through if necessary.”
Stop focusing on the negative
Two readers essentially spoke against significant monitoring, believing that it sends a negative message to employees and hurts morale.
“There are definitely some sites that should be blocked, but if you start micromanaging people, morale will start to diminish. [We hear] repeatedly about how much employees steal from their employers every year; I have never seen any study or research on how much employees pay out of their pockets for using their personal cell phone, car, etc., for work use. These employees just do it with out reimbursement. If we employers stop focusing on the negative and start looking at our employees as ‘assets,’ our employees are going to bend over backwards for us. Many of our employees already do.”
“Many policies are written to address specific abuses of a small percentage of employees. Our philosophy is that employees who spend inordinate amounts of time surfing the Web, on personal telephone calls, visiting with co-workers, etc., generally do not get their jobs done or meet their objectives. If they can do their jobs and still waste time on unproductive activities, it is often poor supervision.”
“My recommendation would be to depend less on administrative remedies and to concentrate on creating a work environment that stresses discipline, achievement, and teamwork. The supervisor is the key.”
Thank you, readers, for taking the time to respond. You can still add your thoughts by using the Share Your Comments button, below.
I believe that employees webslack when they are not busy with work. I know I can get my job done in a fraction of the hours I work but I have to be here 40 hours a week. I can only organize my desk so much and create work for so long. When I am busy I never think about the internet and personal emails. I would prefer to get my work done and go home to do personal items but I can’t.
I noticed nobody mentioned the obvious, where does all this time come from? More than a monitoring of slack time use, it is an issue of poor scheduling, over staffing, poor workload distribution and the old “hurry up and wait” game.
Most people do not like the slack time. It makes the day seem longer, it makes them feel less useful and it makes them constantly worry about job security. The surfing, etc. is a response to boredom.
Nik
Stop focusing on the negative – AMEN! and thank you – excellent perspective.