Negative Effects of Workplace Net Monitoring

Masem writes "Business2.com reports that while many corporations have monitoring tools and restrictions on Internet usages for non-work related activities, these can have negative effects on the productivity of the workplace. The report notes that people have to take days off from work to deal with personal business that could have been done in a few minutes or hours from a work net connection, and that employee morale is generally down when net controls are in place." A related study suggests employees spend more time doing work from home than playing at work.

Comments

Duh! is the only appropriate response

[puzzled]

I was the porno cop at a 150 employee telecom company a few years ago. Highly paid programmers with tight deadlines turned out to have ... other interests and not much real work. An executive who had netted the company several sexual harrasment suits slid through on his corporate position and a difficult to replace provisioning guy continued to http://www.imustlotto.com.

At the end of the day, two people left before the ax swung, the sexual harrasment was institutional and only slightly blunted ... but everyone and I mean every last person ... hated me with a passion for being the messenger.

3% - 5% in any company are going to have some sort of problem and it ought to be dealt with on a performance basis rather than using a squid enforced police state.

Re:Duh! is the only appropriate response

[NetFu]

The only way I can respond to this post is, "Well, DUH!" I've worked for a 150 person company for 12 years as the I.T. Director, so we've always joked that my unwritten title has been "Director of Covert I.T. Operations".

The bottom line is that, yes, this should be dealt with on a performance basis, but what do you do when you realize that an employee is underperforming? Do you just give them a warning that they are not performing at the level you expect them to? Or, do you turn to these tools for that individual to prove that they are wasting huge amounts of company time (at least to the manager, if not to the HR department and the employee himself)?

That's what we have always done and it has generally been effective without causing ill-will from employees. If you hire someone to do a job, and they are not doing that job, then you need to somehow show why if you intend to fire them (at least here in California, I don't know if you can just fire people for no reason in other states) or even if you just want them to do a better job. Also, there is NO employee I've ever met who likes the extra workload because they have to work with someone they know is screwing off while they are working hard.

Nobody gets pissed off when you fire jerks who refuse to do their work. Believe me, there are plenty of people out there who seriously think it's OK to talk on the phone ALL DAY (I'm talking 4-8 hours non-stop) while they work, and screwing off on the internet in IM, porno sites, Hotmail, etc. is no different. There will always be people who will abuse their freedoms at work and we have to use tools case-by-case to weed them out.

Aside from people who can't get their jobs done, we have always given employees a lot of leeway on doing personal things during company time. Nobody cares that I'm posting this right now, and I don't care if other employees do things like this either, as long as they get their jobs done! Performance has to be king to keep everybody happy!

Re:Take days off?

[xanadu-xtroot.com]

Well, there's this new invention called TIME ZONES. Lets say I live in California, and I need to contact a company in New York about something before the close of the business day there. Please explain to me how I'm supposed to do that after *MY* business day when it's 8:00 on the East coast, but it's only 5:00 to me (if you don't factor in drive time).

Sometimes filtering is necessary

[IAmTheSuit]

I am the network admin at a small manufacturing company (~300 people, including plant workers). With the ever-increasing number of workstations available to low-skilled workers (especially after hours), there is a great temptation to mess around with the computer when the boss isn't looking. We've had hard drives and RAM stolen (solution), people drawing "creative" wallpaper in MS Paint (solution), and all sorts of other unproductive stuff.

I'd love to be able to trust ALL network users, but unfortunately it is not possible in a manufacturing facility. If this was purely an office setting, then our T1 would be unrestricted.

Re:Admit it!

[onepoint]

I own a tiny shop, I require everyone to read slashdot 3 times a day for 20 minutes each. ( 1 hour total ).

Why, real simple, knowledge equals growth. I spend 2 years lurking, just learning. I got to say slashdot gives the best education for every stupid line you write.

Plus the shared knowledge of the community gives me the edge up on others. So, yes, slashdot should be a required reading at all firms that are in the tech field.

Onepoint

Are you sure they don't?

[tiltowait]

A recent survery found that the majority of US Businessess practice some form of computer workplace monitoring.

Just use an http tunnel

[terradyn]

You can just use httptunnel or any of the commercial products (www.loopholesoftware.com) out there to do all your secure browsing, chatting etc. It shows up as encrypted ssl web traffic so you don't have to worry about people watching everything you do. At my place of work, all web, phone and chat access is monitored through proxies. During the times when I need to unwind from the stress at work, it's good to be able to chat or browse /., etc. and then get back on track. I think people need diversions during the day to keep productive.

Re:Productivity needs to stay high

[Anonymous Coward]

I work at UPS, and contrary to your information, not only are coffe makers not banned, but in fact, the company opays for the supplies. I have the geek pleasure of sitting right next to the coffee and doughnuts, and I would say that increases my productivity (caffeiene!) The management also has lunch delivered frequently. I would say that from that aspect, UPS is the opposite of many companies. While cutting costs, they encourage some expenses for employee comfort.

Monitoring Doesn't work

[Like2Byte]

I used to work for a company that did this. It was a great place to work and socialize. We'd go out after hours to relax together - all 30 to 40 of us.

We all got our work done before deadlines.

Then the 'management' instituted this internet/mail watch. One video clip e-mailed *to* me later wound up hurting 15 guys on the cc list. The guy who sent it was banned from the net. The rest of us were all banned from the net for 30 days and we didn't even have to have seen it. I hadn't even checked my mail before they summoned us into one room to chew us all out.

I left the company three weeks later over this as did several others. Now, for the people that still work there, they say the company morale sucks and morale was never like it was from 1998 to 2000. Too bad, too. Really great bunch of people they were.

Now, the company has gone through four layoffs and is working with a skeleton crew.

Re:Admit it!

[macdaddy357]

Yes, I am. I am a computer technician waiting for diagnostic tests to complete. During these down times I do not just sit here, I read Slashdot, Fark, F'edCompany, and general news sites to pass the time. I need to occupy myself to maintain my sanity. If they took away my net access, and I had to just sit and twiddle my thumbs during these times, I would lose my mind! I could not do this job. I use a personal firewall and privacy software to get away with this, and I naturally minimize or close Mozilla if a boss comes near my bench. Don't we all?

Re:well, duh..

[Anonymous Coward]

My wife was an ICU nurse for a number of years. There's no way you can goof off when you are assigned two or three critically ill patients to take care of... come to think of it - no pee-breaks either. Some jobs lend themselves to goofing off, others cause people to die if you do.

Re:Admit it!

[schmink182]

I naturally minimize or close Mozilla if a boss comes near my bench.

Try Ghostzilla. Makes it almost impossible to tell when you're surfing.