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".'"

Comments

What is the right browsing?

[cluckshot]

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.

Re:What is the right browsing?

[schon]

They're not treating it differently.

Yes, they are.

Show me an employer who doesn't mind employees spending all day on the phone making personal calls.

Show me an employer who places indiscriminate blocks on numbers that you can call during the day, in order to prevent you from making calls that *might* be personal.

Re:What is the right browsing?

[zaphod110676]

That's basicly what I've been trying to get accross to people for a long time. This isn't a technology problem. This isn't a problem with the Internet. It's a management issue. I can surf the net all day or I can sit at my desk and read a novel all day. There's really no difference. If I did the latter I'd probably get a stern talking to or worse. They probably wouldn't go so far as to ban books from the office.

Re:What is the right browsing?

[El Cubano]

Show me an employer who places indiscriminate blocks on numbers that you can call during the day, in order to prevent you from making calls that *might* be personal.

Show me a telephone number which you can dial and that, by the simple act of connection, results in the infiltration of your company's office such that your Intranet data (e.g., customer personal info, credit cards, etc) can be leaked out.

I'm not saying they should block everything or even anything. But, treating browsing the web the same way as a telephone call is horribly short sighted from a security perspective. I imagine that information leaks out, the leadership will have more worries than how the employees feel about having their Internet access restricted. Look at the recent situation at AOL. I know that was not the result of a random virus, but that result is certainly achievable with a well crafted virus. If you are a big enough target, it is a legitimate worry.

Re:If you're going to surf at work...

[th1ckasabr1ck]

Working as a programmer, the very nature of my work leads itself to periodic breaks where it doesn't hurt my productivity at all to get a chance to check my e-mail or browse /. quickly (honestly, I'm not just saying that).

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.

The workday is 24 hours

[Red Flayer]

Frank Arrigo said it wasn't only about using the net at work: employees are also becoming increasingly frustrated with companies that don't make it easy to access complete company network resources from home.

This is another face of the same coin. Today's younger workers expect to be able to work from home in the evenings, just as they expect to be able to goof off during the workday. A lot of the younger salaried workers I deal with beleieve that they are paid to complete their work, period, and that it's up to them when/how it gets completed. I.e., it's quite alright to goof off all day if you dial in from home to get the work done in the evenings.

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.