Once Again, Company With Obvious Bias Warns Of The Horrors Of Personal Surfing
from the get-over-it dept
It's like clockwork. Every few months we see headlines proclaiming how personal surfing at work is bad. In every single case that we've seen, the "study" has been done by an internet filtering/security firm. The latest is no different. It makes a big deal out of the fact that employers are "damaging their business" by letting employees surf the web. How do they come to such conclusions? By finding out that (gasp!) over a third of employees spend more than 30 minutes a day personal surfing. And that's obviously bad. Why? Because it is. It's so bad, in fact, that they recommend "locking down corporate networks to all but essential business applications and strictly controlling access to non-work-related web sites." I wonder who might provide tools to do that? Oh look... the company that sponsored the study and gave that quote! But, did they bother to look at whether or not that personal surfing was actually damaging? Nah. Did they look at whether or not that personal surfing helped give employees a much needed break that helped them be more productive while working? Nah. Did they look at how people who were blocked from personal surfing found other ways to waste time? Nah. Did they look at how those who are allowed to personal surf at work often use it to take care of tasks that would otherwise take them away from work? Nah. Did they look at how so many companies today expect employees to be on call so that work invades their home as well? Nah. Did they look at how allowing personal surfing at work tends to make happier, more loyal employees? Nah. Or did they look at any of the other research that has shown that employees who do personal surfing at work tend to more than make it up by doing work at home? Nah, of course not. Did the "staff writer" who wrote the article (it looks more like rearranged a press release) think to ask any of those questions? Nah. Yes, of course there are people who abuse their privileges and surf too much. However, that can be judged by whether or not they're actually getting their work done. Have we seen the last of these types of stories? Nah...
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BRIILANT..
Keep up the good work!!
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Re: BRIILANT..
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Right on!
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Re: Right on!
Personal banking, email, and other "clean" sites are fine though.
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Re: Right on!
at least I hope not at work
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Re: Right on!
Bottom Line, folks, when you work at a job, you are selling your time to the employer. You are at work. the employer has every right to secure his systems as he sees fit.
Let's assume that an average employee spends 1 hour a day on non work use of the Internet. that works out to 32 1/2 DAYS of lost productivity on a yearly basis.
So to a business man, if I can put a system in that simultanously innoculates him against some legal liability and adds a 12% gain in productivity over the year per employee, how is that not a win?
We have to get over the idea that we have numerous rights that somehow automatically trump the rights of others. The idea that rights are somehow absolute is fine for 9th grade civics class, but it doesn't work for a civil society.
Your employer pays you to spend a certian amount of time focusing on his intrests, not yours. You don't have to like his rules, but you'll lump it if you like cashing the check.
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Re: Right on!
The best business leaders, whether it be blue collar plant managers, or presumeably chiefs of staff (no personal experience there) seem to think about psychology a lot: there are many trade-offs you need to make when giving and taking work place priveleges, and it is not one sided. The perfect blend should usher the ultimate productivity.
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Re: Right on!
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Re: Right on!
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Re: Legal issues
"Limited" use of the 'Net should be okay - provided that it does not interfere with work or job-related duties.
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Re: Legal issues
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Re: Right on!
The question is not one of rights -- it's of enlightened management v. the impulse to lock down every second of employee's time.
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umm no.
Would you accept your lawyer billing you for 100 hours when he only worked 87.5?
No?
Then why should your employer? Honest days work for an honest days pay.
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Re: umm no.
I am paid to come and sit in an office and wait for something to break.
When it breaks I fix it right away, if nothing breaks what do I do.
I normally study, or browse the net, or work on other projects.
Should I not get paid but for the time I spend fixing stuff.
You can say what you want, but a smart manager knows that if you demand a lot from your people you should also give in return.
Or you will not have anyone working for you and then your production is still low.
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Re: umm no.
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Re: Re: Right on!
As an IT person, we have had to fire a person for NUMEROUS porn surfing incidents. We have NEVER even bothered to talk to anyone about checking their bank account, personal e-mail or news.
Open access is an issue for us due to the Internet streaming that employees do EVEN AFTER BEING WARNED BY MANAGEMENT TO STOP BECAUSE IT CAUSES EXTREME LATENCY ON THE NETWORK.
My reality is that just a few knuckleheaded folks make it bad for everyone else and they SHOULD be rooted out for the greater good and a better workplace for everyone.
Of course, there are factors with every case.
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Re: Right on!
So to a business man, if I can put a system in that simultanously innoculates him against some legal liability and adds a 12% gain in productivity over the year per employee, how is that not a win?"
Uh... best I can figure it, it only adds up to about 10+ hours of lost productivity in a year, working 5 days a week for the FULL 52 weeks in a year, which maybe 3 people on the planet actually do.
Now, I understand your argument that the employer can absolutely shut down non-work related network traffic if they please. The article doesn't say that they can't. The article says it's stupid, which I agree with.
While porn and other inappropriate sites should be filtered, ALL non-work related content has no need to be blocked, unless, as the article states, the employer notices that an employee is not doing their work.
Oh, wait, that would require the employer to actually check on their employees from time to time... Hm... The employer actually has to put a little time and effort into their business? Nah...
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Re: Right on!
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Re: Right on!
Your math is off...there is no need to overcomplicate it like you did that just screws it up. Do it like this. 1 hour a day times 5 days a week is 5 hours. 5 hours a week times 52 weeks in a year is 260 hours a year. Divide 260 hours a year by 24 hours in a day and you get 10.83333 days a year spent browsing the internet. Its no where close to your rediculous 32.5. Didn't your math teach show you how to do word problems?
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Re: Right on!
31.25 WORK DAYS (8hr days)
10.83 DAYS (24hr days)
You are both saying the same thing. But I think you need to use consistent variables. Clarify terms.
WORK DAYS...
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Re: Right on!
It's more accurate, and although the figures might not seem to be on our side, you've still got to be accurate with your maths, and anonymous coward is accurate...
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Re: Right on!
I may spend 1 hour for personal internet use, but my boss knows also that I am an employee he can count on. My work gets done. It gets done on time, and it gets done correctly (for the most part, everybody makes a few mistakes) everytime. Innumerable times, because my boss knows I can be counted on, I will be asked to not leave for the day until a project is done. Now, this may mean I am at work till 7, 8, sometimes even 9 pm. Yes, I am on the clock during this time, but at the same time, technically, since I am scheduled for an 8-5 shift, I do not have to stay. Overall, the company I work for does very well, and the employees are happy. My boss is happy because the work gets done on time. The employees are happy because we know that if we just need to check an e-bay auction really quick, or check our personal e-mail, that our boss will not be over there talking about our productivity. Every good employee (although yes there are some exceptions, but they get weeded out fairly quickly) is happier knowing that if we wanted to spend all day on the internet, we could. No filter would stop us, and our boss would not mind. He does not look at how much time we spend on the internet, he looks at how the tasks we are given are carried out in a brisk, efficient manner. The amount of trust you have in your employees is deplorable, and I hope I never have to work for somebody like you in my life.
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Re: Right on!
I also assume that we are talking white collar/salaried positions, 9 - 5 type of stuff, so are we adjusting for lunch hours? 9 - 5 is seven hours. Are we adjusting for the hours put in at home on our own time thinking about work related tasks?
I personally have used the internet at work FOR work. Being able to have that much information at any time is a good thing for employers. I do agree that pornography and the like has no business in the workplace, so they should be filtered.
Exactly how is this stealing? Again the definition is wrong. You must have taken that from the RIAA/MPAA book of definitions. (in their case copyright infringement = theft, which, it is NOT)
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Re: Right on!
If an employee gets really sick and has to take 10 sick days, how many hours of work is missing? 80.
If he's in an accident and needs some physical therepy and is gone for 32.5 week days (not counting weekends), how many hours of work is he missing? 260.
By your calculations, 52 weeks * 5 days * 8 hours a day / 24 hours a day, a year of work involves 86 days. This is not meaningful to the conversation, stop harping on math that utterly misses the context.
Geez.
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Re: Right on!
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Re: Right on! (if you are an idiot)
Your “puritan work ethic,” will prevent you from ever being an effective management material, though you will make an excellent drone are so focused on the “rules” and on the “law” that you fail to recognize the purpose of work – to accomplish a task.
Imagine a situation:
Guy A, consistently shows up an hour late for work, takes a long lunch, never comes back from lunch on Friday, downloads a LOT of porn on the companies computer, yet always gets his allotted work done.
Guy B, on the other hand is your wet dream. He shows up early, works for an hour before his shift starts, never pees, doesn’t know what porn is, never takes a lunch away from his desk, and is always ready to come in on Saturday when Lumburg asks; yet, for whatever reason – he never manages to get his work done – even when his workload is reduced.
Who are you going to fire, and who are you going to promote? It doesn’t matter, Guy A quit your company two weeks ago, when you chewed him out for coming back from lunch late, to go work for a place that values humans – and your HR director is calling you (or at least your boss) wondering why there is so much employee churn in your department, and why qualified applicants keep asking him if the rumors about how soul sucking it is to work for you are true (they are)...
I would bet you fire guy A, and promote guy B. Who do you suppose your boss is going to fire, now that he is spending more, and getting less done.
You simply HAVE to move beyond this Industrial Age ideology that leads you to believe that chaining employees to their desks and working their fingers to the bone is what is best for employers.
You HAVE to move beyond this repressive puritanical idea that if something makes life more enjoyable and better that it must be bad, and needs to be locked down.
But you are right – Employers DO have a right to block internet access, and any number of other things that are designed to increase the amount of time an employee spends engaged in any given task, and generally insist on making their employees work lives as miserable as possible – but they are bumblefuck stupid if they do it.
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Re: Re: Right on!
Another thing. Some employees cannot be fired so easily. They may be very highup the food chain so applying this accross the company is the only way to combat them without getting sued.
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Re: Right on!
And I have every right to quit and go work for a company that doesn't have tunnel-vision management.
>Let's assume that an average employee spends 1 hour a day on non work use of the Internet. that works out to 32 1/2 DAYS of lost productivity on a yearly basis.
Let's assume that an average employee spends 1 hour a day talking and thinking about work issues while "off the clock". That works out to 32 1/2 DAYS of UNPAID productivity on a yearly basis.
>So to a business man, if I can put a system in that simultanously innoculates him against some legal liability and adds a 12% gain in productivity over the year per employee, how is that not a win?
It's not a win if he drives away what would otherwise be his best employees.
>We have to get over the idea that we have numerous rights that somehow automatically trump the rights of others. The idea that rights are somehow absolute is fine for 9th grade civics class, but it doesn't work for a civil society.
You need to get over the 19th century idea that employers own their employees' time, rather than hiring a person with talent to accomplish particular goals for total compensation that makes the work profitable for the employer. And get rid of the foolish, short-sighted idea that a person's time is bought by the minute or by the hour. You can reasonably expect that from a machine, but employees are human. Focus on whether or not a person gets a job done, gets it done well, and gets it done fast enough to be worth what you're paying for it. If they accomplish a work goal in an "8 hour work day" that includes several or many mental breaks of short or long duration is irrelevant from the economic valuation of the end result.
>Your employer pays you to spend a certian amount of time focusing on his intrests, not yours. You don't have to like his rules, but you'll lump it if you like cashing the check.
Humans have limits. For example, we cannot concentrate undivided attention on anything for 8 hours at a time. Overall performance should be how work is evaluated, not by counting moments and comparing "useful" vs. "wasted". And I have news for you. If I don't like your rules, you're the one who will lump it, because I'll be finding a smarter employer.
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Amen!
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Re: Right on! math!
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Re: Right on! math!
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Re: Right on!
Did you even read what Mike wrote?
Now people will be on the phone to get things done. They have lower morale. They won't want to be on call or work from home. We will spend time doing other things - you need a break sometimes in order to continue functioning.
I think that it's more important to effectively manage your people so that they have tasks and projects to accomplish and not worry about them giving themselves a diversion now and then.
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Re: Right on!
Take the argument of coffee and/or cigarette breaks, look past the legal issue of where they are surfing, and its the same argument from 20 years ago. Most, not all, corporations have realized that to totally ban coffee and Cigarette breaks would bring down productivity.
I know that since I ahve begun doing my banking and billing online, I have saved tons of time for my employer. I used to have to extra time at lunch to got to the bank, or to go pay a bill or a whole day to register my car. Now it may take 5 or 15 minutes of my time, while I am still at my desk monitoring jobs, and still being accesible if something comes. The other way I am gone for those 15 minutes plus the remainder of my lunch hour. Oh, and did I mention that nowadays I rarely leave my desk for lunch. I may be at lunch, I may be surfing, but I am still accessible if a problem comes up.
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Re: Right on!
Of course,the employer has a right to lock down their systems (no revelation there dude) it's a matter of whether that's good for their business or not . . ) what abour productivity loss when I can't do the research I want? Should we prohibit person cell phones too?
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Re: Right on!
Of course,the employer has a right to lock down their systems (no revelation there dude) it's a matter of whether that's good for their business or not . . ) what about productivity loss when I can't do the research I want? Should we prohibit person cell phones too?
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Re: Right on!
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Re: Right on!
Why are you talking about 'rights'? No one said a thing about rights.
Why do you think you need to scold everyone as if they are children?
If you would hire some folks with actual work ethic and commmon sense and treat them like adults they will move heaven and earth to make you money.
Any boss ever talked to me the way you seem like you do to your employees, would be put on ignore anytime he/she called me for something after work and I would be looking for a new job that would treat me as a professional, not a teenager at a fast food joint.
Your post proves two dimensional thinkers and bean counters make horrible leaders.
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It is all in the Numbers...
No. It just means that there is a cost to every business decision and that cost can be calculated. A basic business truth is that which is not measured cannot be managed. What I mean is that just because you want to ignore the math, doesn't mean it goes away or that there is not a cost.
Once you understand the costs, then you can make a business decision as to the benefits versus the cost.
In truth, I would like to be more flexible, but am limited by my board to 10 mins of personal time on the Internet.
As you guessed, I am an IT director. I understand that my job is to support the profit centers, however, part of that job in my case is policy enforcement.
As far as having a 24 hour workday, I can see where that can be irritating. Some businesses are sticking it to their employees. The truth is, though, that you have a choice about if you want to work there. They are not chaining you to your desk after all.
On the whole though, this basic point is unavoidable. Stealing time is the same as stealing money. That is true if your on personal calls at work, fooling around on the Internet, sleeping, or shagging the chick in accounting.
Oh and Stoolio:
"If you would hire some folks with actual work ethic and commmon sense and treat them like adults they will move heaven and earth to make you money."
All things being equal, i agree with you. However, that ideal does not scale to larger organizations. My experience has been that it begins to break down around 50 employees or so.
I could prove that too you with some math if you like...
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Re: It is all in the Numbers...
I think people are comparing different kinds of jobs implicitly here.
I'm a salaried employee - I'm not paid to work 40 hours a week, I'm paid to get my job done, whether that takes 30 hours a week or 60 (and it's often closer to the latter).
Hourly employees are paid for chair time, and thus are actively lying if they stay on the clock while not doing actual work.
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Re: It is all in the Numbers...
Hourly vs. Salary makes a big difference.
If I were running a business, I would not want to see hourly employees spending an hour or more surfing the internet. Lunch hour, breaks, before and after work, OK. 5 minutes every once in awhile, OK.
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Re: It is all in the Numbers...
What's worse was when corporate realized that all of the prepress houses they owned all used Macs. They actually wanted to migrate all of those workers to Windows. Yeah. Try and talk a bunch of twenty year Apple vets and design houses into using Windows for PS and ILL. Oh they had a strategy to retrain about 1000 people and throw out all the $$$$$ they just spent on new G5's and Mac software. Eventually they sold that part of the company after almost running it into the ground.
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Re: It is all in the Numbers...
The issue I had with that company was the enormous amount of central power it thought it had to muster and the tremendous amount of time it took from production having meetings and making employees read and sign new policies every week.
There is this arrogant attitude of large companies that "force" and micromanaging is the only solution.
Want to know what I came up with that worked for the offices I was over?
Two workstations were created with old machines for employees to use for personal use and these machines were off the network. No removable media drives either. All other internet access was turned off except for management and remote users. They were not turned off because anyone was actually doing anything wrong. But it made some corporate hacks feel better.
We only did this because we found it let us get Corporate off our backs so we could do our damned jobs, instead of MIS dicking with us with every new scare they could come up with. There was one month we had twenty hours in meetings on policies alone.
I was in charge of SOX for the Atlanta offices in my area so I know all about the challenges of securing a network on a global scale. You want to talk about an enormous waste of time and money? The first year we worked on SOX we went from 20% profitability each month to 40% in the hole.
I just take issue with moronic companies who install internet access on all of their machines, then waste so much time and money hiring and buying technology just to secure their data all the time screaming about wasting time surfing.
I have worked both sides in my industry- production and MIS. In doing so I have learned people skills that most of the IS/IT folks have no clue about. Most of my fellow IT brethren are good folks, but they also enjoy their power a little too much.
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Re: It is all in the Numbers...
I think your "basic point" has an invalid premise. No one hires another person to work for an 8 hour day believing they are "buying" 28,800 seconds of continuous work. The closest anyone comes to that is the scum that runs sweatshops.
Yes, stealing time is the same as stealing money or anything else. If I show up, "punch-in" on the time clock, leave, come back in 8 hours, "punch-out", then I'm stealing. I can't imagine anyone disputing that. However, I also can't imagine anyone actually expecting a human employee to stay on-task for 8 full hours for 8 hours pay.
Say your employer "gives" you 2 fifteen minutes breaks and a 30 minute break during the 8 hours. Can you imagine any person staying on-task for no less than 7 hours? Did your thoughts wander for 1/2 second? Then you just stole a 1/2 second. Have you every taken 31 minutes on a 30 minute break? Watch it add up...
No, I think the people doing the hiring, and managing are humans (most of them), and they themselves don't stay on-task without let-up. And regardless of policy, they expect everyone working for them to behave in the same way they themselves do.
When managers try too hard to quantify everything so it can be "managed", it can easily become dehumanizing. You end up with proficiency experts looking over your shoulder with a stopwatch in one hand and a clipboard in the other.
Hire me to accomplish tasks with sufficient quality and quality, for an agreed upon amount of compensation, that will be profitable for you. If I deliver according to our mutually agreed expectations while playing solitaire 4 hours a day, then I have not stolen anything from anyone.
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Re:Legal issues
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Re: Right on!
Obviously you are the controlling type.
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Re: Right on!
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reply to post
Have I checked my email from work? Yes, but was I on the phone, or something that allowed me to work with my hands and take care of a problem? Yes.
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Ups and Downs
My wife works for an Event Planning company that deals with planning events for drug companies. Her company has restricted internet, which often interferes with her doing her job. Since "pornographic" web sites are locked down when she goes to get information on STD's alot of times there is material on the site that is deemed pornographic even though it is just showing the symptoms of the disease.
While I am for unrestricted internet I believe people have to use their common sense. I would like to believe that everyone knows browsing for porn while at work is probably not acceptable by their bosses.
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agreed
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Great post!
It's all about striking the right balance. At my company, we filter the real nasties, while allowing casual surfing. Those who abuse this privilege get caught when their performance suffers, but the emphasis is on helping the employee keep their job. We don't use filtering to find the baddies and get them fired; it's enough to know that we're blocking 99.9% of the bad stuff.
Managers should be aware of their employees' activities. Too often filtering is used as a crutch and IT/IS becomes the Internet police because managers are too lazy to keep track of their employees.
So keeping the employees happy AND blocking the stuff that can get you sued is actually pretty easy if management has the right attitude and is willing to be flexible.
Keep up the great work.
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No Subject Given
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Re: No Subject Given
Obviously she's getting away with it. If you're that upset about it, you should report it, and if necessary, skip your direct manager and go to his/her boss.
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Personal surfing
Police the non-productive. Leave the productive employees to produce.
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No Subject Given
I think the important thing is to realize that the organization doing the study is also trying to sell you something. The first two things I always ask myself when I hear about a "study" relative to anything is, who did the study, and who funded it.
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You're kidding.
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parents Just don't understand!
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time wasting
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Re: time wasting
No. you agreed to a certian number of hours. It is the smokers who should get it. Many companies are implementing a complete and total ban on on site smoking during work hours because of productivity and health concerns.
BTW, a quick calculation: each smoker in your example would loose over 41 WORKDAYS (8 hours each people, gotta sleep sometimes) each year. Good Lord!
No one wants to tell you what you can and cannot do... but not everyone is as responsible as you are. It is rather unfortunate, if you think about it.
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Re: time wasting
Try dropping the judgmental attitude and get up from your desk every now and then...
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worker happiness
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No Subject Given
I understand the business need for specific departments within specific companies (finance in particular), but locking down Internet access just to lock it down is Draconian and very counterproductive.
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End of day Whistle
I understand the business need for specific departments within specific companies (finance in particular), but locking down Internet access just to lock it down is Draconian and very counterproductive."
You know what, back in the day every knew when quitting time was because we had a factory whistle which blew at 5. Think our parents and grandparents knew something we didn't?
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'porn' threat = overrated
The whole fear of "OMG employees are looking at PORNO at WORK" is so totally overblown.
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Re: 'porn' threat = overrated
It's rare, but it is real.
OTOH, X still put in a full eight hour day, so if they didn't get their PC filled with spyware and keyloggers we would never have noticed or cared about the porn browsing...
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