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Quarter of Workers' Time Online Is Personal

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the this-is-why-we-created-the-idle-section dept.

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)."

38 of 248 comments (clear)

  1. gbtw... by jonaskoelker · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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!

    1. Re:gbtw... by electrictroy · · Score: 5, Insightful

      >>>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.

      --
      The government is not your daddy. Its purpose is not to raid middle-class neighbors' wallets and give it to you.
    2. Re:gbtw... by ObsessiveMathsFreak · · Score: 5, Insightful

      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.

      --
      May the Maths Be with you!
    3. Re:gbtw... by philspear · · Score: 5, Insightful

      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.

    4. Re:gbtw... by ottothecow · · Score: 4, Insightful

      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...

      --
      Bottles.
    5. Re:gbtw... by Count+Fenring · · Score: 4, Insightful

      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.

    6. Re:gbtw... by cayenne8 · · Score: 4, Insightful
      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?

      --
      Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
    7. Re:gbtw... by 19thNervousBreakdown · · Score: 3, Funny

      Nah, but it does mean it's tough to caught ;)

      --
      <xml><I><am><so><damn>Web 2.0</damn></so></am></I></xml>
  2. only a quarter? by paulatz · · Score: 5, Funny

    It's about 100% for me, e.g. I'm at work now

    --
    this post contain no useful information, no need to mod it down
    1. Re:only a quarter? by tompaulco · · Score: 5, Interesting

      I'd call 25% below the radar. They obviously don't take into account multitasking because I spend most of my day doing at least two things. I have gmail and slashdot up almost 100% of my day, but that doesn't mean I spend 25% of my day doing them. I'm usually browsing slashdot while waiting for my query to run, or while sitting on a conference call. With overtime and multitasking, I'd say there are well over 300% in my day as it is, so 25% is less than the average smoker spends outside every day.
      As far as 80% of e-mails being personal, my experience in the work environment is that this is probably off by at least an order of magnitude. On my work e-mail, I easily get 200 work related e-mails for every personal one, and even that is only if I consider non-work related snide comments in response to work related emails to be personal. Some of the guys at work like to send each other youtube links and forward each other urban legends, but there is no way it is 80% of their emails. Now if you consider that 90% of work related emails are unnecessary then yes I'd guess that you get about 4 personal e-mails for every useful work related e-mail.

      --
      If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
    2. Re:only a quarter? by Dan+East · · Score: 5, Funny

      "I have gmail and slashdot up almost 100% of my day"

      You took an excessive 20 minutes to comment after this story was posted. You are slacking off.

      --
      Better known as 318230.
    3. Re:only a quarter? by Hal_Porter · · Score: 3, Funny

      SELL! SELL!

      Sorry, wrong window.

      --
      echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
  3. No posts? by Tribbin · · Score: 5, Funny

    Everyone reading this article started doing their job?

    --
    If you mod this up, your slashdot background will turn into a beautiful sunset!
  4. Unlikely To Change by jcnnghm · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

    --
    You don't make the poor richer by making the rich poorer. - Winston Churchill
    1. Re:Unlikely To Change by fbjon · · Score: 4, Funny
      25% of Workers' Time Online Is Personal, Beancounters Horrified

      "It's the principle of the matter!", commented one beancounter, completely forgetting he has the wrong principles to start with.

      --
      True confidence comes not from realising you are as good as your peers, but that your peers are as bad as you are.
    2. Re:Unlikely To Change by jeevesbond · · Score: 4, Informative

      Acquantance of mine owns a light manufacturing business. When he first wrote-up his business plan he went to see his bank manager (yeah, no shit Sherlock). This bloke looked at his figures, in particular at the throughput estimates. This is roughly how the conversation went:

      Bank manager: why have you based your throughput on 7.5 hours of work per employee?

      Entrepreneur: because they work 8-5, with one hour for lunch and two 15 minute breaks.

      Bank manager: well you can cut that in half for a start.

      Entrepreneur: Why?

      Bank manager: employees only work productively for 50% of the time.

      (my apologies if any of my manufacturing parlance is off)

      The bank manager was spot-on with his prediction too. It doesn't matter if it's on Slashdot or pissing around on the shop floor, employees will always waste time.

      I'd bet money the kind of micro-managers that like to complain about this are sneaking onto Yahoo! Finance, to look at their personal stocks, when they think no-one is looking though.

      Also, there's a fault with the article:

      Quarter of Workers' Time Online Is Personal

      What if a worker only goes online during their allocated break time? Surely we need an accurate percentage of worker's total time at work is spent on personal Internet surfing. That wouldn't draw enough sensationalist headlines though! :)

      --
      I'm going to transform myself into a mighty hawk. Either that or I'll just go and work at Dixons, haven't decided yet.
    3. Re:Unlikely To Change by jcnnghm · · Score: 5, Interesting

      To take this a bit further, I was working with a financial services company, and for years the staff was allowed to listen to internet radio at their desks, which virtually everyone did. Recently, their partner company was taken over my a much larger organization, that filtered out the internet radio as well as many other "time wasters" with their web filtering.

      Not only did this filtering interfere with getting actual work done (e.g. couldn't access some websites that could provide valuable information), they found that at the end of the quarter productivity had dropped a full 15%. The internet radio helped prevent the mental fatigue associated with performing mentally taxing tasks all day. Sometimes people need a context switch to stay productive.

      --
      You don't make the poor richer by making the rich poorer. - Winston Churchill
    4. Re:Unlikely To Change by rtb61 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      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.

      --
      Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
    5. Re:Unlikely To Change by MBGMorden · · Score: 4, Interesting

      The "context switch" you mention is incredibly important. I have pretty varied responsibility at work (the downside of working in an IT department with a total staff of 12 people). Sometimes I'll be doing almost nothing but coding for days on end - sometimes I'll have nothing at all to do. Sometimes I'll have email server issues. Right now I'm manually creating a conversion table to switch a land classification system in one old system to a better system that we're implementing. In short, sometimes my work gets monotonous.

      I've found that if I stick to it straight for hours on end, not only do I get cranky and less productive, but I also feel so drained that I often don't even feel like doing anything when I get home. So, I take an approach of working diligently for 40-45 minutes, and then going off and doing something else (personal email, Slashdot, whatever) for 10-15 minutes. Doing that I generally get more done and feel much less drained when I get home at the end of the day. You just have to have something to break up the chores that you have to perform.

      --
      "People who think they know everything are very annoying to those of us who do."-Mark Twain
  5. If they were getting their work done... by earnest+murderer · · Score: 5, Insightful

    who cares.

    If not, fire them.

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

    --
    Platform advocacy is like choosing a favorite severely developmentally disabled child.
    1. Re:If they were getting their work done... by AKAImBatman · · Score: 5, Informative

      who cares. If not, fire them.

      This is the correct answer. Salaried employees are hired to do a specific job, not work a particular number of hours. Thus it is at the discretion of the employer to decide whether or not that job is getting accomplished. 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?

      This aspect of being a salaried employee is actually codified in US law. (See: Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 for "exempt" employees) The law was configured for workers who may end up working odd hours or irregular hours or traveling for their employer. Since the job is much more complex than just "lift this item" or "cut this metal", charging on an hourly basis does not make sense.

      Long story short? This is a non-story. If any employer believes that his employees performance is sub-par, he should take it up with the individual employees directly rather than concerning himself with the details of their personal internet surfing.

      --
      Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
    2. Re:If they were getting their work done... by Lumpy · · Score: 5, Insightful

      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

      --
      Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
    3. Re:If they were getting their work done... by VeNoM0619 · · Score: 4, Funny

      I once worked a full 6 of 8 hours in one day... Turns out I did 3x more than my coworkers did.

      Now I feel guilty that I did too much and am making my peers look bad... so... you'll see me around here more :)

      --
      Disclaimer: I am not god.
      We may not be created equal
      But we can be treated equal.
  6. No way of tracking? by Serenissima · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Bosses often have no way of tracking Internet activity

    Bosses have no way of tracking Internet activity? Maybe they should read the rest of the article...

    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)."

    Seems like they can track Internet activity pretty well?

    --
    Give a man a fire and he'll be warm for a day. But light a man on fire and he'll be warm for the rest of his life.
    1. Re:No way of tracking? by digitalgiblet · · Score: 3, Insightful

      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...

  7. So what? by GreyWolf3000 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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.

    --
    Slashdot: Where people pretend to be twice as smart as they really are by behaving like children.
  8. right person for the right job by osopolar · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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!

    --
    Never Compromise
  9. It's lower for me cause ... by neonprimetime · · Score: 4, Funny

    on my time sheet I record time spent on /. as Job Responsibility Training.

    1. Re:It's lower for me cause ... by Stooshie · · Score: 4, Informative

      R and D

      --
      America, Home of the Brave. ... .and the Squaw.
  10. Idiots did the study one sided by gurps_npc · · Score: 3, Insightful
    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.

    --
    excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
  11. Too bad. by Lilith's+Heart-shape · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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?

    --

    I write sci-fi for metalheads

    1. Re:Too bad. by g0dsp33d · · Score: 3, Funny

      why should I work harder than the smokers when I get paid less than they do?

      So you don't?

      --
      lol: You see no door there!
  12. What about the other 75% by wonkavader · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Am the only person who thinks that it's amazing that many workers spend 75% of their on-line time doing work for their company? How much work can you do for your company on the web? I know there are specific jobs which require it, but most workers?

    We provide web access for all workers because there's that 10% or 5% of the time they use it where it's actually necessary for the company. We also provide it, sometimes, to improve their quality of life, and reduce the amount of time they spend away from the job on personal stuff.

    Doesn't the 25% number seem absurdly low?

  13. Oblig. Office Space by darkvizier · · Score: 4, Funny

    Bob Slydell: You see, what we're actually trying to do here is, we're trying to get a feel for how people spend their day at work... so, if you would, would you walk us through a typical day, for you?

    Peter Gibbons: Yeah.

    Bob Slydell: Great.

    Peter Gibbons: Well, I generally come in at least fifteen minutes late, ah, I use the side door - that way Lumbergh can't see me, heh heh - and, uh, after that I just sorta space out for about an hour.

    Bob Porter: Da-uh? Space out?

    Peter Gibbons: Yeah, I just stare at my desk; but it looks like I'm working. I do that for probably another hour after lunch, too. I'd say in a given week I probably only do about fifteen minutes of real, actual, work.

  14. Re:So what?-Goof balls. by camperdave · · Score: 3, Informative

    Europeans tend to start with at least 4 weeks of vacation time per year, as opposed to the two that us North Americans get.

    --
    When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
  15. Results Only Work Environment by __aattwy1646 · · Score: 3, Informative

    This is why we should be moving towards the Results Only Work Environment (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ROWE). Stories like this are based on the workplace as it was 50 years ago, it's a lot different today. Performance should be based on what you get done; Employees shouldn't have to worry if they are 'appearing' busy.

  16. Re:Unlikely To Break in. by Mr2cents · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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..

    --
    "It's too bad that stupidity isn't painful." - Anton LaVey
  17. Results-Only Work Environment by GBC · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I recently read about a concept called Results-Only Work Environment (or ROWE for short) in a book called Why Work Sucks by Cali Ressler and Jodi Thompson. The book is about a programme they implemented at Best Buy's corporate headquarters which lets people only be judged on results, not time.

    They did away with schedules, compulsory meetings etc. and it let them weed out people who accomplished nothing, whilst allowing everyone else take control of their own time. In other words, to bring it back to the article, they suggest that ALL time is personal - it doesn't matter how you do it, provided you get what you need to done on time. Staff retention, motivation and productivity went through the roof because of it. Unfortunately most workplaces aren't willing to treat their employees like adults so the idea is not exactly widespread (yet).