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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)."

14 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.

  2. only a quarter? by paulatz · · Score: 5, Funny

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

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    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. 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 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
  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.
  6. 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