Battle Over Employees Using Web on Company Time
Workers' Facebook Visits Costing Companies Billions
Aug 13, 2009
There is a gentle battle going on between corporations and their employees about the latter's use of company time for visits to social networking websites. New Nucleusresearch.com data shows that almost half of all employees access Facebook during working hours, causing companies to lose an average of 1.5 per cent of total office productivity.
This issue has been rumbling around like distant thunder for some time. According to Jacquie Cheng of artstecnica.com, back in 2005, Websense claimed that 93% of all employees admitted to using their employer's web access for personal as well as business reasons and that such shenanigans amounted to a loss of $200 billion per year for American companies.
Rather Give up Coffee than Internet
It may all be coming to a head. Jacquie Cheng reports on artstechnica.com that 52% of employees said they would rather give up coffee than Internet connections. They also said they spend 25% of their time, during working hours, checking online auction and social networking sites.
The situation is so fraught that experts warn that an hour out of a working day spent on Internet use is excessive. EPolicy's Nancy Flynn goes one better and says employers should train workers about permitted web use (epolicyinstitute.com).
To try to combat losses, half of all US employers have policies banning visits to personal networking or video sharing sites. Many go further and prohibit personal text messaging.
Facebook Friends are Business Acquaintances
It's tricky though; the rising popularity of BlackBerrys, iPhones and other devices with web access and messaging makes it difficult to enforce such rules, particularly on an employee's personal cell phone.
Martha Irvine of Associated Press reports that Ryan Tracy, a young worker whose employer blocked access to Gmail, Facebook and other sites, took his laptop to a nearby cafe on work time so he could use its Wi- Fi connection to send large files. He maintained that much of what he was doing was work-related.
Before looking at restrictive measures employers should probably realize that work and social life are intermingled. Many Facebook 'friends' are business acquaintances so the visits to the site during working hours could be work related. Besides, office friends often send messages during non-working hours so there is a trade off.
Smartphones and Other Devices
The lines between working and home life are becoming seriously blurred, especially as, with the popularity of smartphones and other devices, many people carry their work home and are never separated from email. Experts say people's office computer time is becoming an extension of their social lives and vice versa.
Most feel that employers who object to what is going on are mired in old thinking when the divisions between home and working life were easily identifiable.
Many say that online networking is no different from spending time around the water cooler and that it's an employee's performance, not web use that should be important.
Breaches in Confidentiality and Liability
However, Nancy Flynn says employers in highly regulated fields such as finance and health care aren't just worried about wasted time but about breaches in confidentiality and liability.
So what is an employer to do? Well, more are experimenting with opening access and are finding that, while employees may spend time chatting to their friends, they are often asking them for advice on a work problem or looking for contacts.
As workers and employers square up for a battle over surfing online auction and social networking sites on the job, there seems little sign of a victory on either side.
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