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Unlock Internet or Risk Losing Staff?
Dan Warne writes "People don't want to work for employers who heavily restrict internet access, a senior Microsoft executive said in a keynote speech at the opening of Tech.Ed 2006 Sydney today. From the article: 'These kids are saying: forget it! I don't want to work with you. I don't want to work at a place where I can't be freely online during the day," said Microsoft Senior Design Anthropologist Ann Kiera. She dubbed internet-wary employers "digital immigrants" and said the new wave of younger workers were "digital natives".'"
Aye, there's no way I'm working without my porn site access. Can't get a single thing done without it!
That and all the chat channels, the streaming music videos, and all those flash sites.
2) WTF from TFA:
*shakes head* Child abuse?
3) It's Anne Kirah, not Ann Kiera. I know she works at MS and has a ridiculous job title, but at least try to spell one of her names right.
There are shills on slashdot. Apparently, I'm one of them.
The issue of internet access at work and its use is a curious one. We have been allowing people to use the telephone at work for years in a limited fashion. As long as it didn't invade the work day too much it was sort of accepted. It also generally wasn't recorded.
Internet is just telephone communications. No different. Treating it differently isn't wise. The employers are right though if the use gets out of hand.
There is of course the problem of not knowing what browsing is legitimate anyway. This isn't easy to determine either. Remember that clicking on a link might be accidentally the wrong one or you might be searching a topic and get one of those trick sites listed for the Porn types. It isn't really a matter of any or filters, it is a matter of content and time.
Never Politically Correct ~ I prefer the facts If you don't like what I say, get a life, or comment yourself.
Well isn't it the business's network? That means they should be able to do what they want with it. Whether completely open it up or block certain sites/ports. Like it or not, they have good reasons for it. Employees for one may be more likely to sit around browsing the web rather than doing the work they're assigned. Security threats from spyware/adware could increase. Yes, you can block those certain sites, but those sites tend to be less likely be accessible from a network with some kind of surf control. I work in a help desk and the spyware/adware problems went down tremendously once we implemented our surf control system. Yes there are some sites I wish I could go to, but its not that big of a deal to me...I can still get to slashdot. People have to grow up and realize that they're getting into the real world, and the real world does not revolve around any one person. I don't mean to offend anyone by saying that, but its how the world works fortunately or unfortunately. Besides, most companies will unblock a site if it's blocked but is needed for work.
What's the matter, James? No glib remark? No pithy comeback?
As a manager, I get peeved when deliverables are late but I see developers checking out some girl on Myspace. I have no problem with job-oriented surfing, but I want limits on what is accessed by my staff.
I want my teams focused on the job at hand during the day when the entire staff is around to help each other out. Having people working outside normal hours, while admirable (kind of), may be unnecessary if more work and less surfing is done during the day.
So normally I sit down with a goal, I think about how to go about implementing it, I bang out the code, and then I have a few minutes of downtime (sometimes more) while the damn thing compiles. Now most of the time I use this time to think about the next step of the problem, or to jot down notes of possible issues to take a look at, or to finally get around to answering e-mails about other issues in the code, etc. but if none of these are pressing then I don't feel guilty at all browsing around online for a few minutes. As I write this I'm waiting for my first build of the day to finish so I can get started.
doing other things when they should be productive
That means all your people are ones who can be "productive" for 2x4 hours continuously, starting from your mark ? You're labelled "funny", but still, in case you're serious, I'd really like to know what planet you're writing from.
I am putting myself to the fullest possible use, which is all I can think that any conscious entity can ever hope to do.
I see it like this (being all full of P&V) I'm very intolerant of being told "go do this job" which CONSTANTLY involves some sort of internet research or a post to a forum only to find a big ASCII red hand that says this site is denied because it blah blah blah blah blah. I get sick of people saying "all you're going to do is surf" when I, and tons of people in my position (I'm IT, helpdesk, computer repair etc.) *NEED* access to the net, as a whole, and are fully capable of avoiding sites which shouldn't be viewed at work. But because of senior administrators who think they know best about the internet, I end up locked out of sites (see, Ad-Aware) and have to find means of getting around these barriers to DO MY JOB! Not all of us are internet surf addicted freaks, y'know. I *DO* have work ethic.
I have worked for two ends of the extreme, one company that was very restrictive with internet access and one that was wide open.
Working in IT I found the overly restrictive company made repairs and troubleshooting increasingly difficult since many times I had to research a problem at home and then fix it at work. I remember one incident where we had a scsi backplane go bad on a server that was out of waranty, they had a couple of lower techs hammer against it for 3 days before passing it to me. I looked at the error logs, ran some diagnostics and looked up some error codes, had the problem isolated in 10 minutes, but ended up getting written up for "using the internet" on company time. I found that after a while I did the bare minimum required not be fired since half the time I was doing busy work at home and the real work at home anyway.
The other company was a telco provider we had unrestricted access, it was great troubleshooting and repairs had an amazing turnaround time, but there were people that abused the priviledge. Eventually they weeded themselves out through poor performanace reviews or being called out for slacking off. Basically it comes down to what kind of employees you have, if they are responsible and take their job seriously internet access isnt a problem, its a matter of trust. If you dont trust your employees you either need better ones or perhaps need to find out what you may be doing that causes them to have no dedication to the job.
Actually, I'm dead serious.
/. at 9:30 am, right?). I happen to be out of the office this week, but it's not uncommon for me to chekc /. twice a day. My admin checks cnn two or three times a day(I know, she tells me if something interesting is happening). I know one of the CAD guys likes to see what's on (hmmm, can't remember the name). I don't mind it for down time, and we do have it, but it can easily become a waste of time for all but the most dedicated.
That said, nobody (well, very few people) are 100% productive for four hours straight. Still, I don't provide magazine racks, several daily newspapers, or televisions in the office area. The internet can be a real time sink - it's like going into a well stocked library, it's very easy to get distracted and lose 30-40 minutes. I'm just as guilty (hell, I'm on
Occasional use is okay, just as we used to bring the morning paper into work and read an article with a cup of coffee mid mornng. There are a lot of folks who really get caught up in the internet, and don't realize that they're wasting 60-120 minutes in an 8 hour day. For what its worth, I have no limitations on my (or my employees) internet connections - it is not a problem - however I can see the need in a large organization for controls.
I've considered actually turning off net access to all the desktops (yes, even in my office) and putting a stand-up web terminal in the library area. If you need to look something up, look it up and trnasfer the pdf to the library on the internal server. If you want to surf or chat on IM, stand there and surf - at least it's honest, and you're not alt-tabbing back to your work every time somebody walks past your cube.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
I see this all the time at my company, and in the long run, it leads to burnt-out employees. We've had much more success with staff retention and productivity my asking that employees do not work from home (to the point of canceling almost all of our GotoMyPC accounts), do not stay late (with exceptions, of course). If employees want to get their work done, they've got to do it during the work day. If they don't, well, they face the same situations that most employees who fail to meet their objectives face...
Work is work. As an employee (and this is the part of the legal definition according to the IRS, btw), your employer has the right to tell you how and when you do your job. If you want to work on your own schedule, you should be freelancing or consulting.
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
I've been a self-employed freelancer for eight years who took a full-time job six months ago. In this time I've been able to observe that the single biggest drain on employee productivity is farting around on the Web.
Don't get me wrong: I'm not advocating corporate firewall fascism. However, it seems to me that for employees with poor self-management skills unfettered Web access is an enema for provoking ass-blasting levels of laziness. It is a procrastination enabler for those who are poor are organizing their time.
What's the solution? Obviously we should all be graded upon hiring to determine whether we're elite enough to control our own net access, or whether we need net nannies. Okay, that may be less obvious and more simplistic and stupid but still -- you see what I'm getting at: painting employees with too broad a brush is tricky here, but abuse of net privileges is personality dependent.
(/me looks around, checks for managers.)
Well, I'm off to read MeFi and fuck around with my blog. Give me a heads-up if anybody important is coming.
These stories are free but worth money.
>Why do people expect to be given free internet access at work?
They also *gasp* make personal phone calls sometime. Sometimes to the babysitter or their spouse! We must implement a whitelist for the phone immediatly.
Seriously, work is a compromise. You want humans to work for you, then be prepared to meet them halfway on their social needs. Or watch yourself get a reputation for being an arrogant boss and a 'fascist company.' Talent will never come knocking at your door and you'll be stuck with people who love or can tolerate harsh policies. People who dont use the web as the resource that it is, people afraid to make a personal call, and people who end up in a stokholm-symdrome-like way defending these silly policies. Not to mention how competitive is a company with these draconian policies? In my experience its crappy little small business with paranoid micro-managing bosses who demand hardcode filtering.
Also, professional work is rarely sitting at a machine and putting in x amount of work like a typical blue collar job. Its collaberation and social skills. Its finding out new things. That means you need tools to communicate. That means there will be slow periods and downtimes. That means using the internet with as little restriction as possible.
Also, there's a real difference between a technological and social problem. If someone slacks on their job because of the internet (or any reason) it becomes obvious after a while. If this happens its not because you lack a decent filtering system its because you lack a good employee.
Lastly, if security is such a concern, I believe very few, if any, popular windows exploits work when the user doesnt have admin access. A simple security change like this, which is something that hsould have been done long ago, makes the web very safe. Blaming poor security practices on the web is just being silly.
I work for a software company here in eastern Canada. We're in the top ten of privately owned software companies in Canada. We're about 200 employees. At our office in Moncton, there are no restrictions on internet access of any kind. In fact, I'm at work right now posting this message and I have no worries of my boss or anyone else watching what I am doing because in this place of work, all of the employees are trusted to do their job and get their work done.
I find it's a lot more about the philosophy of the company as a whole. Here, most employees work 8:30-5:30 with an hour for lunch. No one's watching the clock and telling us we were 5 minutes late or took an extra 10 minutes for lunch. The idea is that the managers know the staff do their work and as long as the work is done, it doesn't matter if you surf the net or take a longer lunch. Just don't abuse it.
I have plenty of colleagues who surf the net, IM, stream audio, and plenty of other non-work related stuff with the internet and they have been doing it for years. They'll do it in front of the bosses, even the COO & CEO and there's no issues. The issues don't exist because for starters, everyone knows that they have a job to do and they do it. The company also makes sure that they hire people who are not going to abuse it or go too far. When someone abuses it they are confronted and the issue is dealt with. If they continue to abuse it, and their work suffers, the employee is let go. But here, it happens so little because people are paid well, treated well, treated fairly, and they all know it and respect it so there's no problems.
I can see the whole issue of "security" but where I work, we have good security software which does its job, and an excellent IT staff who are well trained, well educated, and well experienced. They do their job. The regular staff are well trained about things they should and should not do. I've seen no issues with security or huge virus outbreaks here yet and admittedly, I'm not in the IT department but when a virus hits, everyone knows.
I think the thing is that many companies are poorly run and when things start falling apart, they blame the employees for surfing the internet instead of addressing the real problem. I worked for one firm where a controller came to me and wanted me to monitor someones internet time because she thought they were doing too much of it. The employee maybe surfed the net for a whole 15 minutes of a work day, if that. Turns out, the controller was let go because she was incompetent (sp?) and couldn't manage her staff and time right. It wasn't about internet abuse. It was about having the wrong employee working for you.
My point is, it's not about just saying you can have access or not, it's part of the whole environment and not just a technicality about internet access. I've always been of the type that if the company gives a little, they'll get back far more, provided they have the right kind of people on their payroll.
No matter how fast computers get, you'll always be waiting - Matt Klem
the access of your employees, you have a problem. If you recongnize that one of your employees is addicted, do what you would do when he would be an alcoholic: talk to him and send him to the doctor. If you recongnize that too many employees are addicted or that their attitude towards the job is in a way that they spent thair time on ebay, you should think what's going wrong in your company. Maybe fire you director of human ressources, give mandatory courses to management about how to lead and motivate people. If you come, after all, to the conclusion that somebody is abusing the net and not doing his work because he is the wrong person for the job or the job is the wrong job for him, let him go. No restriction which you set can make him an efficient worker.
The only thing which i would be seriously concerned is security and increased administration cost. I would suggest to request the employes that they do theier private sutt in a virtual machin, which is not connected to the intranet (= on a separate VPN).
Too many children (all ages, Im talking mentally) are worried about what can I get. You work for a company.
Why is it "childish" to say "what do I get in return for giving you my work?" This isn't about breaking rules, it's about people not WANTING to work places where said rules exist. What's unreasonable about that that's reasonable about saying you don't want to work outdoors during the winter if the company uniform is shorts and a tshirt?
All these PHB types are ranting "well, I would fire them for that." Big deal. The entire point of the article is THEY DON'T WANT TO WORK FOR YOU IN THE FIRST PLACE. Bad news for you, if MS takes this to heart (if they didn't already), then it's going to become a "best practice" since that's how the business world works (unless they get a patent on "increasing worker morale by not being an overbearing cock," that is). You do what more successful companies do.
If unrestricted internet access from work is so important for you that you'll refuse a job, then you're most likely one of the people who shouldn't be allowed that unrestricted access.
"People who do stupid things with hazardous materials often die." -- Jim Davidson on alt.folklore.urban
You're exactly right. Look, maybe "back in the day" people had a standard flat productivity rate during the day -- but it was a flat low rate. We're simply not in an industrial age economy any more like many of our execs came of age in. We're in a knowledge economy. Our mind simply fluctuates throughout the day, and from personal experience I can get a full 8-10 hours of work done during the 4 hours or so that I'm at maximum clarity of thought and focus compared to most people. However, if I try do work at the same level when I'm not at my peak, I burn myself out.
Myself, when writing code, I flip on nethack during compiles to keep the mind going. But I do surf first thing in the morning while I'm having my cup of coffee and at the end of the day when I'm burnt out.
"You disturb me to the point of insanity. There. I am insane now." - The Sprockets
I think it depends what you major in and what kind of skills you have.
It also depends on how picky you are in terms of what kind of work you'll do, or where you want to live. People who only want to work in a particular city (e.g. NYC, Boston, DC, etc.) or only want to do a particular sort of work, may well have the limited options that you describe. But such was not my experience, or that of other people I know. Granted it was a while back and the economy was a bit different then, but I definitely had a choice of places to work when I graduated college. But then again, I didn't have a lot of other requirements besides a paycheck: I was willing to relocate and travel, and my skills were fairly general.
Obviously, how much "say" a recent college grad has in where they end up working, changes radically depending on the economic environment. When companies are competing for new employees, as they were during the mid to late-90s, workplace perks become significantly more important than during a downturn, when the job itself is almost like a perk. And as I mentioned, the competition for employees differs radically from one region of the country to the other. A company in Boston might be beating college grads off their doormat with a stick, while one in Phoenix, Arizona might be desperately seeking young workers. It all comes down to tradeoffs.
I think that the internet access is similar to the attitudes companies had regarding dress codes a few years ago. Young employees saw suit-and-tie operations not only as personally restrictive, but also indicative of a corporate culture that they might not have liked; in response, a lot of places changed to "dress casual" over time. While we can argue about the merits of professional attire all day, there was definitely a lot of change as a result of companies trying to get rid of the stodgy appearance, and many of these improvments were aimed at recruiting new workers. Internet access could be similar: companies that don't restrict seem like they'd be better places to work, for reasons unrelated to the internet itself -- less overbearing management, more trust of employees, etc.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
Have communal machines conveniently, but visibly, sprinkled around the office. Let these communal machines have complete access to the internet but no access to company resources. Work machines would have a whitelist. The nice thing with this solution is that the responsible employee that is just going to spend a few minutes reading mail or news can do so, but the irresponsible employee who spends excessive amounts of time will be noticed by fellow employess. A publicly visible monitory also will reduce the porn site hits.
Worked at a place where they monitored my internet usage really strictly. Got called up to the HR directors office, because I was, "On the internet every 15 minutes for a week".
Same week I was running a long and really boring set of database reports. Bring up the report, change a few things, set up the distribution list, start the report, check slashdot while waiting for the report to finish, make sure the report ran correctly, put report in distribution queue, rinse, repeat. The reports all built on each other, so there was no way I could move on until I was sure the previous one had finished correctly.
I did two departments worth of reports, and ended up having to wait to do the last few reports because I finished second and fifth out of ten damn departments, and I know for a fact those jokers who finished sixth through tenth never got talked to for their damn "excessive" internet usage.
Little mental breaks during compile/run time are beneficial for the overall quality of my work. Goddamn smokers get 3 breaks an hour when they're not even doing something where a break is dictated by the workflow. If there is a problem with my productivity, fine, say so, but if I'm as productive or more than the bulk of my coworkers, then shut the hell up.
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
Note that DansGuardian is GPL but claims to be proprietary. From its copyright page:
In other words, if you truly believe those mutually exclusive claims, you have to install it at home for your own personal use, then redistribute that copy to your office (as is your right under the GPL). Either that, or you could buy a "download license", which is right up there with SCO's "Linux License" for sheer return on investment.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
Are better off without them.
As an integrator, VAR, developer, security consultant, and chief cook and bottle washer for many firms, I advise my clientele with respect to their internet connectivity, and the expense and disbursement of the same. Given the strict liabilities of corporations, it is unfeasible to permit unrestricted access. Furthermore, I don't find it surprising that this discussion is coming from Redmond, which offers one of the most difficult Operating Systems on the market, in that it's increasingly difficult to secure Windows of any description and therefore it's probably just more cost effective to give free reign than it is attempt to limit the corporate liabilities presented by the deployment of M$ products.
It should also be painfully obvious that internet access is not free, but must be paid for by the corporation, and unfettered access in ANY environment could prove unnecessarily costly. In these difficult economic times the onus is on upper management to ensure that the operation of the company is streamlined in such a way as to ensure both maximum productivity and profitability.
In the Canada there are PIPEDA legislative restrictions in place that must be met with respect to user/customer privacy, and as such, in even a well considered M$ environment, it is not possible to grant unrestricted internet access and comply with the rules. Granted it may be possible to provide a properly cordoned internet access, but this should only be available to employees on their break times.
As the by-line suggests, productivity is still the bottom line, and employees (digital natives or any other such ludicrous monicker) should not be the defining force behind internet access policy. It is widely held that a measured approach is preferable. One that can enable all stakeholders without potentially compromising any corporate/consumer data, and maintain operational efficiency to ensure that at the end of the month the company can still afford to honour the paycheques they pump out.
if I claimed I was emperor just because some watery tart lobbed a scimitar at me they'd put me away!
Most people in this thread are completely missing the point that has been made in the original article. I attribute this to one of two things:
1.
The comments that have risen to the surface here have been made primarily by Digital Immigrants who have learned to adapt to their technological surroundings but have never and probably never will completely integrate those technologies with their minds. You may have a plethora of gadgets and you may administer hundreds of boxes, that does not make you a digital native.
Digital natives have been born in and have grown up in an environment where their every action, every thought has been melded with technology. Instantaneous rich interactive communication is a way of life for them and goes to their very core.
Taking a cell phone away from a teenage girl may not be physical abuse, but mentally it most certainly is. It is tantamount to locking someone into an isolation cell or taking away their faculty of speech. Not as harsh as both those conditions, but lacking the reference material, certainly it is perceived in that way.
I am a knowledge worker and I use digital technology to search, find, process, refine and publish knowledge. I need free internet access to be able to give my best and work to my peak. Not being able to IM restricts the people whose knowledge I can benefit from and with whom I can forge relations. Being behind a firewall where I can't FTP, SSH or use POP only worsens the situation and I feel crippled everyday I have to plug my laptop in at work. I resent being there any longer than I absolutely have to.
Yes, I don't need these services to do my day to day work. But to be able to express myself to the fullest and be a complete individual I most certainly do. That raises the question, has my employer hired me for the person that I am and my needs for communication or to be just another worker drone in his cubicle.
Employers would best take a page out of the Chie Happiness Officers book and take it to heart: http://www.positivesharing.com/
2.
A Design Anthropologist's views may strike most people at Slashdot a bit odd but it probably is because she is talking with people and about people. The notions she distills are very valid and interesting if you are making systems aimed at people.
It is the people, stupid! And to the right decisions in high level design companies would be smart to get more input from the humanities.
-- Alper
As I see it's not what employers are banning it's the way and the fact that thye do at all. If a person has clearly defined responsibiliites and they are living up to those responsibilites and not doing things that cause harm to the company like surfing porn which can bring law suites etc then leave the person alone to do the job they are hired to do. If they are not doing what they are being paid for then discipline and termination is in order. It's the bean counter and middle management tirants that care about this minutia and it's they who need to do something more productive than hover and lose sleep over surfing habits. Stop treating people like commodities and show some respect.
Sounds like you've bought into the factory/robot mentality.
Working in a factory or in telephone support is different from working in a job which requires thinking, creativity, and problem-solving. People can't invent new solutions for things for 8 hours straight, with only a rigidly-timed lunch break. Our brains don't work like that.
Sure, if your job is flipping burgers and refilling soft drinks, it doesn't take much brain power to do that, and there's no reason to be goofing off on the job. Just turn your brain off and follow the routine, day in and day out. But if you're trying to devise creative solutions to complex problems, this simply isn't going to happen according to a rigid plan, timed to the minute.