Slashdot Mirror
Report Finds More Aussie Gov't Workers Misusing Internet
destinyland writes "A new report to Australia's parliament announces a 54% increase in government workers misusing the internet. In fiscal year 2010, 313 different federal workers came under investigation for improper use of e-mail or the internet, up from just 202 in the previous year. The report — available online as a PDF file — also discovered that nearly half the investigated workers were in the Australian Tax Office, according to an Australian technology blog. 'Maybe it's just a case of particularly boring work making such distractions more attractive,' they suggest, since the report blames most of the discovered cases on one-time incidents of poor judgment."
Although superficially logical, I dislike this attitude. Relaxed, happy workers are generally more productive and of greater value to the company - showing them respect (and giving them the chance to blow off a little steam) by simply stating that they must maintain an acceptable level of productivity (hard to quantify, I know, but decent management should be able to roughly gauge how much work someone's getting done) is likely to work a lot better in the long run. Basic rules about illegal downloading and the like should obviously be in place, and if an employee is messing about online to the extent that it's detrimental to their work then of course disciplinary measures are in order, but telling your workers exactly how they must behave breeds resentment - telling them what they have to achieve and leaving it up to them to decide how to do so is a far more sensible tactic.
From what I've seen of this, the flip side of this is that such people are also much more likely to be checking work email, etc. after hours. So if something suddenly comes up during non-normal hours, it's more likely to be dealt with quickly as part of a give-and-take approach. It's a blending of personal and working life. Yes, you do have to accept that some personal matters will be dealt with during work hours, but work matters will then sometimes be dealt with during personal hours.