IMAGINE if corporate employees were made to take a lie-detector test or some other such contraption, how many would emerge out of it with red faces looking and one assumes, feeling guilty too. Each one of us has sometime or the other given in to the temptation of personal surfing while at work. We have well and truly been bitten by the `surfing' bug. In fact, it was recently discovered that one employee had visited a stock-monitoring website 186 times during a 12-day period! And sure he is not the only one! Welcome to the world of cyber addicts who are populating workplaces everywhere. According to a survey conducted by Vault.com, nearly 85% of employees with online access at work said that they use the Internet for personal purposes. What's more, workers admit that they waste over two hours a day doing non-work related surfing, which adds upto mind-boggling figures every week or month.
Can you hold your people responsible for it? After all, with the whole world and its sister going online, there is no dearth of opportunities to keep these aficionados hooked. Also, the Internet has turned into a virtual Man Friday that can meet your every need and then some more. Personal surfing on company time can still be overlooked to an extent when they are harmless activities like cyber shopping, online banking, managing stock portfolios, catching news updates, checking mails or chatting with friends. However, more often than not, they do tend to acquire illicit connotations in the form of gambling, offensive mailing, transmitting confidential company information and adult site surfing. Some people even stoop to running a personal business or conducting a job search all funded by the company, in a way.
Consider this: A survey by WebSense, an employee Internet management company in San Diego, U.S.A., found that `cyber slacking' costs the economy $54 billion a year since as much as 30-40 percent of lost employee productivity can be attributed to workers' personal use of the Internet alone. Furthermore, employees' clandestine surfing can open the door for lawsuits due to their inappropriate behaviour.
Technology-savvy employers are waking up to the situation and protecting their backs with a vengeance. Covering your tracks is no longer as simple as switching screens when the manager happens to saunter by your workstation. Most organisations have taken to installing sophisticated tracking devices on their company networks to track employee moves on the Internet. There is nothing like anonymous browsing any longer, as absolutely nothing can go undetected. The employer can keep tabs on everything as every webpage, e-mail or chat room you visit, infact every click of your mouse is recorded for posterity. Incidentally, if you happen to be reading this article over the Internet, keep it in mind that the boss knows it too! So, watch out for what you do and where you visit because you will leave telltale footprints that will blow the whistle on your activities. There will not only be embarrassment and shame but also a possible job loss in store as employers take strict disciplinary action against the erring employees. More than 60% of American businesses have disciplined their employees for misusing the Internet; more than 30% have fired workers for it.
Know where to draw the line: Employers are really not the two-headed monsters we paint them out to be. They are not averse to employees sending an occasional e-mail or sporadically checking a stock update. Playing a few games, catching up on the latest news or bidding for an audio CD is tolerated during breaks or as a quick-fix breather. But, constraint is a trait not many can boast of, as time and again we may be tempted to break the rules.
You may very well ask, `How much is too much?' Well, it pays to read your company policy on acceptable Internet usage and adhere to that. In case of a zero tolerance approach, you have no option but to renounce it in toto. But, if the company grants reasonable leeway, exercise prudence and do not go overboard. Also, what is important is that your work should not be seen to suffer.
So, let your work take precedence over everything else. After all, you are being paid to work, aren't you?
Can you hold your people responsible for it? After all, with the whole world and its sister going online, there is no dearth of opportunities to keep these aficionados hooked. Also, the Internet has turned into a virtual Man Friday that can meet your every need and then some more. Personal surfing on company time can still be overlooked to an extent when they are harmless activities like cyber shopping, online banking, managing stock portfolios, catching news updates, checking mails or chatting with friends. However, more often than not, they do tend to acquire illicit connotations in the form of gambling, offensive mailing, transmitting confidential company information and adult site surfing. Some people even stoop to running a personal business or conducting a job search all funded by the company, in a way.
Consider this: A survey by WebSense, an employee Internet management company in San Diego, U.S.A., found that `cyber slacking' costs the economy $54 billion a year since as much as 30-40 percent of lost employee productivity can be attributed to workers' personal use of the Internet alone. Furthermore, employees' clandestine surfing can open the door for lawsuits due to their inappropriate behaviour.
Technology-savvy employers are waking up to the situation and protecting their backs with a vengeance. Covering your tracks is no longer as simple as switching screens when the manager happens to saunter by your workstation. Most organisations have taken to installing sophisticated tracking devices on their company networks to track employee moves on the Internet. There is nothing like anonymous browsing any longer, as absolutely nothing can go undetected. The employer can keep tabs on everything as every webpage, e-mail or chat room you visit, infact every click of your mouse is recorded for posterity. Incidentally, if you happen to be reading this article over the Internet, keep it in mind that the boss knows it too! So, watch out for what you do and where you visit because you will leave telltale footprints that will blow the whistle on your activities. There will not only be embarrassment and shame but also a possible job loss in store as employers take strict disciplinary action against the erring employees. More than 60% of American businesses have disciplined their employees for misusing the Internet; more than 30% have fired workers for it.
Know where to draw the line: Employers are really not the two-headed monsters we paint them out to be. They are not averse to employees sending an occasional e-mail or sporadically checking a stock update. Playing a few games, catching up on the latest news or bidding for an audio CD is tolerated during breaks or as a quick-fix breather. But, constraint is a trait not many can boast of, as time and again we may be tempted to break the rules.
You may very well ask, `How much is too much?' Well, it pays to read your company policy on acceptable Internet usage and adhere to that. In case of a zero tolerance approach, you have no option but to renounce it in toto. But, if the company grants reasonable leeway, exercise prudence and do not go overboard. Also, what is important is that your work should not be seen to suffer.
So, let your work take precedence over everything else. After all, you are being paid to work, aren't you?
PAYAL AGARWAL
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