Quarter of Workers' Time Online Is Personal

sloit writes "Most people spend more than 25 per cent of their time online at work on personal activities. And 80 per cent of emails sent by volume in the workplace are personal. Bosses often have no way of tracking Internet activity or policies to define what staff can and cannot do. Paul Hortop, who reviews company network security for consultancy Voco, said the most common websites visited by personal web surfers were online trading sites, instant messaging/chat services and peer-to-peer sharing sites (allowing movie, music and software sharing)."

Comments

gbtw...

[jonaskoelker]

the most common websites visited by personal web surfers were online trading sites, instant messaging/chat services and peer-to-peer sharing sites

Cue the collective "You left out slashdot!"

And GBTW!

Re:gbtw...

[electrictroy]

>>>25 per cent of their time online at work on personal activities.

Shocking.

And before computers existed, they spent 25 percent of their time standing-around the water cooler, or sitting at their desks daydreaming.

Re:gbtw...

[ObsessiveMathsFreak]

The best milk comes from the happiest cows.

If you want to squeeze every last penny of time out of your workers, then you had better be prepared for the drop in productivity and quality that follows. This isn't to say that you should be providing lazer tag sets and two hour lunches to use them in. But it does mean that if you create a work environment with the rules of a gulag, then can expect good workers to leave, middling workers to become poor, and poor workers to either bomb, revolt or take advantage of the situation. In effect you will be spelling the end of your business.

Just like cows, it doesn't take a lot to keep workers happy either. Friendly environment, free food, good furniture, understanding they have outside lives. These things cost you little, but deliver far more. If people like where they work and who they work with, they won't want to leave. Balance in all things of course, but at the end of the day, allowing geeks to browse Slashdot, or people to call back home will cost you far less than insisting you get back every nanosecond of the time you pay for. After all, what is it that you do at work all day?

If you want the best milk, you need the best cows, but also the best fields.

Re:gbtw...

[philspear]

Unfettered web access leads to ridiculous losses of productivity.

That's a hypothesis. Is there proof one way or the other? If my job boss tried to increase productivity by a few percentage points by micromanaging, blocking all non-strictly work related websites, and tried to put blinders on me, I personally would spend more time trying to get around them and THEN goofing off than I would if they just left it up to my best judgement. Plus I'd think less of my job and would be less motivated.

That's just me though, I suppose other people might welcome the fetters, and possibly on average your approach would increase productivity. So lets see a study.

Re:gbtw...

[ottothecow]

of course, if you are one of the workers who *can* get it done in less time, in many situations you are probably still expected to be there.

If everyone in your company is working the 10 hour day, even if you *can* do it in 8, you may not be able to leave so it seems reasonable that people would insert more interspersed downtime into their work to stretch the work out to fill the day...

Re:gbtw...

[Count Fenring]

Yeeeeeeah.... I call shenanigans, sir!

Humans just aren't built for eight hours of straight focus. It's just not effective. And the kind of companies that try to shoehorn you into "Maximum productivity" tend to just stifle you into mindless drudgery.

This is why Google's "Work 25% of your time on a project you choose" is so genius. It sets up an outlet for this that's also productive.

Either way, we need to get rid of the idea that employment means OHMYGODMYEMPLOYEROWNSMEIMUSTMACHSCHNELLALLTHETIME!!! I've been at more places that fight with me over federally mandated break and lunch times (an especially sticky issue for a hypoglycemic) than not.

Also: Your example is diarrheal crap. The bankers weren't lazy, they were criminally fraudulent. Their motivations: not lack of a desire to do work, but ACTIVE DESIRE TO MAXIMIZE PROFITS PAST A REASONABLE AND SENSIBLE POINT. It's not that they didn't want to risk check, it's that they deliberately shuffled the risk around paper accounts so they could present the portfolios as better than they were. And given that many of those mortgages were sold under basically fraudulent terms, given hard sells to people who couldn't afford them, and jacked up to ruinous interest rates without warning, I'm going to go out on a limb and say that that's not primarily an entitlement problem either.

Re:gbtw...

[lysergic.acid]

yes, we should be living in Stalinist Russia instead. that'll show those lazy bums sending personal e-mails at work!

if everyone worked as secretaries, burger flippers, or other entry-level positions/menial jobs, then i would agree with you. but some of us do more challenging and intellectually demanding work. as a web developer and graphic designer, i couldn't imagine doing work on a computer that has an internet whitelist.

even if there was a whitelist that contained all work-related sites that i could potentially need to access (stock image libraries, font stores, language reference sites, web software vendors, etc.), it would still decrease my performance and productivity if i didn't have unfettered access to the web.

as a graphic designer, i spend a lot of time perusing design blogs or random websites looking for inspiration. and even though i've been doing web development for quite some time, i still benefit from reading online guides/tutorials or other articles on the applications and programming languages i use. yes, in theory i could do this only at home, and then just spend 100% of my time at work writing code and working in photoshop/illustrator/quark/etc., but that's just not how it works.

i find that i'm actually most productive and produce the best work at home (usually late at night) when i'm able to set my own pace and can establish a good rhythm for working. it's also less stressful and much more enjoyable--which is partly why i produce my best work this way.

granted, i don't use instant messenger when i work (whether at home or at the office) or play games online, etc. but occasionally having a diversion like reading a /. article does make work more relaxing and helps to keep my mind fluid and alert.

also, sometimes it's hard to draw the line between work and personal research. i may be taking some time off the current project that i'm working on to do a little "personal" research into database software, and that may lead me to choose a better database to build the next web application for work around. similarly, i might read an article/guide on a particular web toolkit that might end up helping me with my current project.

personally, i enjoy my work, and when i don't i don't do quite as well. i imagine if all companies took your attitude it would just result in more employees feeling miserable and getting less fulfillment from their jobs, resulting in less productivity. Google probably wouldn't be as successful as they are today if they took your approach, and a lot of great products/services would probably not exist.

Re:gbtw...

[tompaulco]

And from a recent discussion about the differences between US and European work practices, it was generally agreed that the Europeans get the same amount of work done in 8 hours, that it takes the US 10 hours to do.
They'd pretty much have to in order to get the same amount of work in while having 4-6 weeks of paid vacation and more holidays than U.S. people and not working 3/4 of the hours that the typical U.S. IT person has to work.
Just try getting in touch with anybody in the European office in August. They are ALL on vacation.

Re:gbtw...

[Anonymous Coward]

A point I've made to my boss: if you try to box people in too tightly, people may start spending extravagant amounts of time trying to get out of the box.

Dammit. I'm at work. I guess this counts as part of my 25%

Or does /. count as work if I'm network admin?

Re:gbtw...

[cayenne8]

Hey..as long as you are getting your work done on time, who cares?

I mean, most of you out there are on salary, right? That is supposed to pay you to get your work done , no matter if it takes longer, or less than 40 hours a week, right?

Re:gbtw...

[electrictroy]

Ya know, I'd be thrilled to work just 30 hours a week (i.e. four days) if the boss would let me. It doesn't even matter to me that I'd have a smaller weekly paycheck.

But too many of the managers are tied-into the "must work 40" groupthink.

Re:gbtw...

[fabs64]

Exactly. "Percentage of time spent working" is and always has been a useless statistic except for the most menial of tasks. The only metric that matters is "work done".

Unlikely To Change

[jcnnghm]

People have always found ways to waste time at work, and that's not going to change any time soon. Trying to make it stop will only breed resentment, lower employee morale, and reduce productivity. I frequently take short work breaks to work on personal stuff, especially when I am trying to think through a problem.

Re:Unlikely To Change

[rtb61]

You have no idea how untrue that is. Have you ever worked on a factory production line, have you worked on a building site for a subcontrator, have you ever worked any where that you are in fact supervised for the entire eight hours shift plus overtime.

All places where middle management spend their whole day squeezing every bit of labour of the workers they can. Not to belabour the point, but the strangest thing of all is the more you get paid the less you work and the less you are supervised but work on minimum wage, the very worst pay, and you are supervised constantly and you will get fired for slacking off.

You also get absolutely no internet access, no email, personal phone calls are restricted and even toilet breaks are monitored. People who get it easy should always think of those that get it much worse, not that you should join the as slave labour for minimum wage but, you should always consider ways that their work conditions should be improved (man those people really are underpaid for their miserable work conditions).

When it comes to professionals of course I forecast that the biggest time waster in the future will be UMPC's and unmonitored cellular internet access.

If they were getting their work done...

[earnest murderer]

who cares.

If not, fire them.

Chime the horde of corporate apologists and micromanagers pissing in the wind.

Re:If they were getting their work done...

[Lumpy]

If an employee manages to work only 2 hours a day but accomplishes more work than his 8-hour/day peers, why would an employer complain?

greed?

stupidity?

Many managers out there are way too stupid to understand a guy that can work in very intense bursts and then assume they can operate that way 24/7

Re:If they were getting their work done...

[houghi]

Nice in theory, but it does not always work out that way.

On the one side you will have people who get employed and get things done in 2 hours and then could go home.

On the other side you have employers who give you so much to do that you need to work 16 hours instead of taking 2 people who work 8 hours.

Both extrem examples, but 1 hour per person is already a nice amount of money you do not need to pay.

So I do work 8 hours and if they wish to give me only two hours work then I do /. for 6. If they give me 9 hours of work, they will not get the task done, because I can only do 8. If they compensate me for 9 hours, I will work 9.

This does not mean I never do extra hours. It is as always a bit of give and take. But if I work in a team of 8 people and they do it with everybody, they better hire a month if they want to have the task done in time.

Re:If they were getting their work done...

[paanta]

In an economy where we're bleeding money (especially in the large corporate world) I fail to see how this is a non-story.

Ohhhhh, so we should work harder. We lose money on every unit we produce, but we make it up on volume!

So what?

[GreyWolf3000]

I come to work at nine, work straight till 5, and bring lunch in. About 5-10 minutes of every hour are spent checking personal emails, calling my home internet service, calling back the health insurance compan, etc. A lot of stuff can only get done during the day. Plus, a lot of other employees spend 10 minutes every hour outside smoking. Big deal.. my boss knows I don't spend every minute staring at my code, but he also knows that it's important to renew the mind regularly in order to maintain quality.

Re:So what?

[yukk]

Exactly. There is goofing off and then there is taking a break to refresh your mind. Sometimes I get "in the zone" and work flat out for hours forgetting to have lunch and sometimes I find that there's a typo and I stare at the code and I just can't see it. Staring for another hour won't help. Wandering off to think about something else, get a coffee, talk to the receptionist or "goofing off" means I come back with a fresh outlook. Then there's stuff that has to be done between 9 and 5 (or 10 and 4 for government stuff) and if you're fretting about whether that important personal government document is ever going to get done, how do you concentrate on work ? Place that call, work while you're on hold, deal with the matter and everyone's happy. At least that's how I see it. My boss seems to agree. We both get our work done and we both keep our lives, family and sanity together.

More Importantly,

[Anonymous Coward]

Who Cares?

My company gives me access to the fax machine for "personal" stuff now and then if I need, why should internet access be any different?

If they cannot afford the bandwidth or cannot afford to "pay me to surf slashdot" for 20 mins/day, then they deserve to go under and I'm better off elsewhere.

As long as the work gets done...

[assantisz]

... why would anybody care about this? Just make sure the online activities are legal and according to company policies (no porn or hate sites, for example). There is absolutely no need to go beyond that. Let the employees have some downtime.

Who cares

[CmdrGravy]

If you do the work you're supposed to be doing then so far as I can see you're free to do whatever you like with the rest of the time you spend at work.

right person for the right job

[osopolar]

How about this ... don't pay people for their time anymore. Pay them for what they know or for what they do. Performance based incentive is better than straight salary. Get rid of the attitude that I Mr. big shot employer am your boss as long as you are on the clock. Get a new attitude that you can't control peoples lives by the second. This has most likely gone on from the dawn of employment - now thanks to the internet we can track it by the second. PEACE!

Re:No way of tracking?

[digitalgiblet]

This article was no more than a press release for Mr. Hortop to drum up more business for his company Voco. If a microscopic fraction of the people who read the article contact him, then he had a successful zero-cost marketing campaign...

Idiots did the study one sided

[gurps_npc]

Without a comparison, that information is useless.

How about listing the percentage of time on the phone AFTER work that is for work?

Or how about listing the percent of people's free time that is taken by 'overtime'. Or emails from work received in my personal email box.

Or at the VERY least they need to see how much of that 'time spent on line' was done during 9-5 and how much of that 'time spent on line' was during overtime hours.

For many people, it could be 25% spent of online time at work is 'personal', but 90% of that is done in their 9th hour at work. I.E. I really need to be shopping for a birthday present for my wife but the boss needs me here at work, so I'll log on and get something from Amazon while I'm waiting for Joe to call me back with the answer to my question.

Too bad.

[Lilith's Heart-shape]

Most of my coworkers spend fifteen minutes out of every hour outside smoking. I don't smoke, so why should I work harder than the smokers when I get paid less than they do?

Of course more time is spent on personal stuff

[aweiland]

With the advent of Blackberries, etc more time outside of work hours is given up to work. Therefore during work hours that missing personal time is being made up because there is no other time to do it. I'm not sure why employer's don't get this. You can't magically add more hours to someone's workday

Who works 4-8 hours straight in IT?

[averner]

For some, working 4-8 hours straight (depending on when your lunch break is) on an intellectually demanding job is mentally exhausting to the point of being unrealistic. Some people need "personal time" so they don't get burned out, and are much more efficient if they have breaks more often.

Re:Unlikely To Break in.

[Mr2cents]

People aren't machines. And if your job is creative, you *need* to turn the switch from time to time to force you to think about something completely different. Otherwise you keep thinking the same way about a problem (tunnel vision), instead of finding a new and better way to solve it. At least, that's what I think.

Now, back to work..

So what?

[MrZaius]

I say this as both a manager and an employee:

The minor loss of potentially productive time described here (25% of some undefined (didn't RTFA) percentage of the user's overall work time) is blown on personal tasks and unofficial communication not explicitly related to work..... and? This doesn't seem even remotely unusual, regardless of the availability of an Internet connection. Aside from those few jobs where contractors and the like bust their ass 12-14 weeks a quarter like in construction work, having an adequate amount of time off in between tasks, I'd say the distraction of socializing with your colleagues and dealing with certain personal matters is often a positive thing. If you're working 9-5 and you present the choice to your boss that you've either got to take an afternoon of leave to deal with your financial matters outside of the office or that you could accomplish two hours from the office via electronic means if he/she wants you to stick around, I'd expect most bosses to just roll with it. If you're working nights under my supervision and you pull up a flash game of Tetris after remedying a server outage that dominated your time and energy so much that you obviously need time to switch gears, you've earned your rewards. If you're working under me and you've got 40 tasks assigned to you and, after working each of them to the point where you want to hit Slashdot, more power to you.

Chew 'em out when it starts to prevent them from getting their tasks completed. Reward those who goof off less, but you must accept a reasonable minimum if you want your employees to be productive, sane, and present. Most people in adequately staffed organizations wouldn't think twice about a person who takes two or three short "coffee breaks" per day or a lawyer/congressman's intern/city councilman's assistant that chews through each days newspaper during work hours. Why should you care if someone CTRL-TABs into Google News or the Wikipedia for an hour a day? Judge your employees by specific goals set ahead of time, in a fair and equitable manner. Don't jerk them around for "misusing" company resources at no cost to the company and for being human enough to need to think about something other than work a couple of times per shift. You'll get more done and have a level of morale that you can't possibly build up by micromanaging people to the extent that the summary implies that you should.