Misuse of the Internet in the Workplace
Misuse of the web in the workplace generally falls into two
main categories, inappropriate use of email and unapproved internet surfing
that wastes time and resources and could possibly have malicious intent. Many employees send emails form their work
account and they mistakenly believe that emails are a form of private
communication. In today’s work it is
interesting to me that there are people who do not realize that email is not
private communication from your employer if it is conducted through your work
email, on your work computer with private email, or using the employers network
for web access. Most companies have specific
policies about about the use or misuse of work email and many have monitoring
systems in place. The policies are there
for the protection of the
company so that they can put a stop to any activity that might have legal backlash
for them.
Email misuse can take many forms; employees can use work
email resources to facilitate a side business, solicit goods or services for
personal reasons, defame other persons, employers, or employees, leak protected
company information or personnel information to outside sources, or search for
a different job. While there is not someone reading
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every single email sent at a company, search algorithms are combing through the data and suggesting emails for review by IT or HR personnel. I have seen anengineer who was highly qualified and good at his job fired because he sent a joke email to another friend at the company about being laid-off during a tough year where lay-off notices were rampant. The company obviously did not find it funny, considered it defamation, and fired him immediately. From the outside, it was a harmless joke that you might have made at lunch, but once it is sent via email, it becomes a much more serious matter.
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Workers today must assume that any activity conducted on
workplace email, computers, or networks are being, at least passively,
monitored. More importantly, activity is
archived for reference if investigations after the fact need to take
place. Inappropriate internet surfing is
a growing
concern of employers and wastes valuable company resources. Internet surfing can be inappropriate simply
because it is wasting company time, but it can also be content that is inappropriate
for the workplace as well. A study about
a decade ago found that 92%
of online trading and 46% of holiday shopping took place either during work
hours or on company resources. While the
activities themselves are not inappropriate, the use of employer resources is a
concern. While there is more awareness
in recent years of monitoring of internet activity. most people would be able
to point to a time when they saw someone using work resources or time to
conduct such personal activities. The
changing nature of work and the disappearing lines between work and personal
life make the ethics of such situations more complicated. If you are a salaried employee that actually
works closer to seventy hours a week rather than the contracted forty, does
conducting a personal errand during business hours have the same ethical
considerations as an hourly employee that punches a clock?
Weiner’s Principle of Equality
states that what is just for A and B must remain the same if their places are
switched. According to that thinking,
either internet errands are unacceptable or they are acceptable regardless of
the position. So is it acceptable to run an errand on your own device when
taking a break? Many employees believe
that because they are using their own device the communications and their
activity is private, but if you are still using the employers network access
you are not truly private. Activity on
work computers or their networks is not private or
protected by law, even if immediate supervisors do not have a problem with
the activity. In general, if you want to
use your own device on a short break at work, I would recommend turning off Bluetooth
and wireless so that you are accessing your cellular network that you pay for
rather than company resources, as consumption of bandwidth is another concern
of employee personal internet use.
Recent data reports that approximately 25%
of company bandwidth is employees’ personal use of the internet. While bandwidth may seem a minor issue, in a school
that completes online assessments that require a very large processing load,
misused bandwidth creates a real issue.
In a school where teachers may be streaming classroom video content as a
part of quality instruction, sixty students or teachers uploading or
downloading pictures in SnapChat for
personal reasons can result in legitimate access being kicked or slowed. The cost of internet misuse was calculated in
2005
as $5000 per employee and the internet surfing phenomena is referred to as
cyberslacking. With much of the work
today conducted on computers, having visual cues to know who is slacking is
more difficult. No longer is that
slacker the person who is always around the water cooler or in the employee
lounge. They can easily be someone who
comes in early and appears to work late, if you do not look closely at what
they are actually doing on their workstations.
While monitoring of internet activity is not perfect, it is more effective
than employee reporting of misuse. A recent
study has shown that only 43% of employees who witness violations of a
company’s acceptable use policy reported the offense, often because of fear of
retaliation. Workers who are member of
social networks are less likely to report misuse as the retaliation is more
severe for those in social networks.
Once again, this is an issue that comes down to the trust
between work teams and employers. The
personal work ethics of an individual are really the determining factor as they
have always been. It may be easier to
loaf in today’s world, but the majority of workers are putting in the work they
are paid for and often more. Some of the
drive to work is personal, but in the changing job market of today many people
work more to assure that they are not downsized when decisions are made. Fairness is one of the five fundamental
ethical principles and having work-life balance is an issue of fairness and therefore
ethics. When considering running a work
errand (on your own device and cellular network), ask yourself if you are being
fair to your employer. Are you fully
committing to the work you are paid to do?
Often times a email errand can
be used to conserve more time away from work than necessary. Will taking two minutes to email or call your
child’s teacher forestall an hour spent driving to the school for a personal conference?
Do you really know your company’s
policies? Did you read that agreement
when you were hired, or just sign it?
Now might be the right time to revisit those policies and be sure you
really know what your legal rights and limits are.
Interesting post, Nora. As the lines between work and life blur, strict policies on bandwidth use probably need to blur as well. It is a tough issue with no easy answers. If an employee gets an email after hours and responds, that is obviously not via the company's bandwidth. Yet use within work hours is...and can be abused. Are there common sense rules?
ReplyDeleteNora,
ReplyDeleteGreat narrative—your summation was both accurate and informative. The use of email in the workplace is a concern for companies and organizations, alike. One method for monitoring email is to disallow, specific sites and content (i.e., Facebook, hotmail, etc.). This measure worked well enough for my last organization, e.g., the U.S. government. When an individual attempted to open certain websites, they would receive a message, as well as site censor. However, as “clever” as the government is, there were permissible ways around it. As you can imagine, managers often ignored email traffic because they understood the blurring between workplace and personal time. In the end, as long as you accomplished your daily task, your internet behavior was not of concern.
Kevin
Nora,
ReplyDeleteMany things to think about here, however, the term cyberslacking seems to be the overall theme. This is especially the case when we as leaders want to trust our employees and assume that they have the best intentions for the company at heart. Therefore, work time is devoted to work and nothing else. However, it is difficult if an employee has two servers up and minimizes one at this time of the year to do some shopping for Christmas, and the other server is devoted to work duties. This is tough, because it breaks trust and employees seem to think it is alright because they are still doing work on one screen. Furthermore, what if an employee is exceeding sales expectations and regularly devotes time during the work day to other activities, while another employee spends the entire day devoted to work activity, yet, they do not reach their monthly sales quota. What does a manager do? In a numbers game quite often, as long as sales quotas are met often times a corporation does not care, again, as long as quotas are met or exceeded. This is the exception, but some times the reality. More and more though it seems that companies are able monitor employee activity. I think this is justified if work time is being taken advantage of and $ is being lost. In addition, i think it is difficult to form employee teams to monitor other employee activities, definitely puts them in an awkward position and can possibly lead to other situations like workplace bullying if they appear to be whistleblowers, always difficult to put people in that situation. Nice post, interesting topic.
Chris Brown
Nora,
ReplyDeleteI thoroughly enjoyed your post this week. I have commented before on the incredible frustration I have with certain colleagues of mine who are nearly always on Facebook or YouTube when I approach them for something related to our actual jobs. This presents a tricky ethical situation for leaders as well, as far as deciding repercussions for employees who may occupy a significant amount of time and bandwidth engaging in activities unrelated to their jobs. In my school, this has been difficult, as certain teachers have been chastised for use of personal email or personal Google Docs, and one of the administrators who is nearly always on social media or watching videos has not been reprimanded even once. Leaders need to be both monitoring employee use of the internet, as well as ensuring fairness in repercussions, if there are any at all.
I appreciate that you specifically address the issue of bandwidth, though. Our school is a Google School, meaning we operate almost entirely on the internet, all throughout the day. If there is a colleague shopping or browsing social media during the day, or students streaming Netflix or using Snapchat, it is impossible to use Google Slides for my academic presentations, or for my students to access Google Docs to take notes or complete assignments. This is difficult for us as teachers, because our students also have e-books, meaning there are few or no real textbooks in the classrooms. With total reliance on the internet, bandwidth is highly valuable. Again, as leaders, this is an important issue to which one must pay attention. If employees who are trying to use the internet in a productive manner are being impeded due to the misuse of internet by others, that needs to be addressed, before it leads to widespread frustration and low morale.
Great examination of this issue this week. Thanks for sharing!
- Katie
Nora,
ReplyDeleteThe internet misuse at work can be placed in so many scenarios because the Internet is a common tool of usage for most companies. Even if the company does not require its employees to use computers, some way or another, the business must operate with the functions of the web. I believe that the control of the misuse of the internet in the workplace is something that cannot be controlled due to the needs of the company. What was most important about your post was the ending thought of there being trust between the employer and employee. The productivity of the members of the organization is what drives all progression to help meet the goals of the company. At any job that I have ever had, the use of the internet was a major part of the department each day. One manager at a previous company cut certain sites from the recruiters when they accessed their lead portal. In many ways, I though it was necessary to take away the sites, but when looking at the nature of the industry, I was needed. Also, I felt that with internet, it should be privileges that should come from the company. Help the department by letting everyone know that the misuse of the web will be a penalty for anyone who violates the policy. In all, setting a catalyst between the two can at least prevent the company from experiences the challenges that are detrimental to their organization.
Jimmy
Nora,
ReplyDeleteVery interesting post and this is a great topic. I also think it’s a tough situation. As a supervisor, I have had to talk to my employees about Internet usage, but mostly just to warn them of the perception it gives. I believe employees should be able to use the Internet for personal use periodically — as long as they aren’t going to porn sites, etc., of course. When I was an I.T. manager I had several people who took long breaks outside of the building. For those who chose to stay inside, I didn’t mind them spending some time on the Internet. But what I warned them about is that if somebody routinely walks by their desks and sees non work-related websites up, the perception is that they are surfing the web all day. I used to give the example of the CEO or CIO walking by and seeing them on Facebook, even if they only spent one minute per day on Facebook. The snapshot that the CEO/CIO sees becomes what they perceive as their reality, unless I witness it and can tell them otherwise.
Ray