Internet Misuse in the Workplace
Internet misuse in the workplace refers to employees engaging in personal internet activities during work hours, often termed as "cyberslackers." This phenomenon has been prevalent since the late 1990s and continues to impact workplace productivity and efficiency. While the internet can enhance work performance, it also creates opportunities for employees to divert their attention to non-work-related tasks, such as online shopping, social media, and gaming. Surveys indicate a significant portion of the workforce admits to using the internet for personal matters during work hours, with varying amounts of time spent on these activities.
The implications of internet misuse extend beyond lost productivity, leading to increased security risks and liability issues for employers, as well as bandwidth constraints. In response, many organizations have implemented strategies including monitoring employee internet use, developing internet use policies, and blocking specific websites. While some employers take a strict stance against personal internet use, there are others who recognize the potential benefits of moderate personal access to enhance employee morale and creativity. Nonetheless, excessive monitoring can lead to negative consequences, including increased stress and decreased trust between employees and management.
Internet Misuse in the Workplace
The term “cyberslacker,” used to describe a worker who uses the internet during work hours for non-work-related activities, first appeared in the media in 1999. Since then, personal internet use in the workplace has not abated. Although the internet has enabled increases in workplace productivity and efficiency, it also provides greater opportunities for employees to waste time on non-work-related tasks. Employees surf the web, shop online, conduct online banking, check stocks, visit pornographic websites, play online games, send personal emails and instant messages, and participate in social media sites.
The misuse of the internet in the workplace results in a loss of productivity, increased security risks for company computers and data, potential liability for illegal activity, and decreased company bandwidth. Companies have adopted numerous strategies to manage internet misuse in the workplace. These include employee monitoring and electronic surveillance programs, software programs and firewalls to block certain websites, and internet use policies.
Overview
Several organizations have conducted surveys to identify exactly how widespread is internet misuse in the workplace and the consequences of that misuse. A 2012 survey by Salary.com reported that 64 percent of employees admitted to browsing the internet for personal use during the workday, although the report also noted that figure represented a nearly 10 percent decrease from a similar 2008 survey. Of the employees who admitted to browsing the internet at work, 39 percent reported spending one hour or less per week, 29 percent spent two hours per week, 21 percent spent five hours a week, and 3 percent spent ten hours per week browsing non-work-related websites.
In 2014, Harris Poll conducted a national survey of about 3,000 workers and 2,100 human resources professionals during a three-week period on behalf of CareerBuilder. More than one-fifth (21 percent) of the respondents admitted to spending at least one hour a day on the internet for personal use during the workday. While there is no consensus on how much time employees spend in internet misuse during the workday, and many managers estimate the time wasted online during the workday to be higher than reported in such surveys, unrestricted access to the internet gives employees ample opportunities to engage in personal activities rather than work tasks.
Human resource professionals and organizational behavior analysts have examined why so many employees use the internet for personal reasons during the workday. For many employees, the internet provides relief from boring, tedious, or stressful tasks. For others, it allows them to do personal tasks that they lack the time for outside of work. Some employees prefer to use work computers for activities they do not want recorded on their personal computers, such as viewing pornography sites. And many employees feel that the boundaries between work and personal life are blurred, and because they spend so much personal time performing work tasks such as checking work emails, they feel entitled to use work time for personal tasks.
Some employees use the internet as a reward for completing a task or assignment. Others use it to stay connected to the external world during the workday, especially to check the news or follow special events, such as sports or political events.
Strategies for Managing Internet Misuse
As the use of computers spread in the workplace, so too did concerns about their use for personal purposes. In the mid-1990s, many companies began using software programs to monitor computer terminals. Some programs tracked employees’ keystrokes to measure their performance, while others tracked employees’ terminals and hard disks in order to identify the websites they visited and to monitor their emails. Concerns about employee privacy arose, with numerous cases being heard by the courts. The result was several federal and state decisions that determined privacy rights. As technology use continues to develop, the law continues to evolve.
Generally, employers have the right to monitor employees’ internet use on company-owned computers and networks. They can monitor emails sent and received on the company’s email system, as well as those read or sent through private email systems using company computers. They also can search company-owned cell phones and smartphones and read or listen to personal emails, voice mail, and text messages. With few exceptions, particularly for members of labor unions and public-sector workers, employees do not have privacy rights for any activities using company computers or networks.
There are two main methods to monitor employee computer usage: software installed directly on individual computers, and software or firewalls installed on networks. Within these two broad categories is a wide range of increasingly advanced surveillance tools that can, among other things, record videos or still images of monitor displays; monitor keystrokes, whether for performance or content; and track websites visited, files downloaded or attached, and emails or instant messages sent through the company server or computers. Many monitoring systems also allow companies to read and store the contents of emails and instant messages.
Companies monitor employee internet use for multiple reasons. A huge concern is the loss of productivity when employees engage in any non-work-related activity. Other concerns include security, particularly with regard to the sharing of trade secrets and other unauthorized information, and potential liability for inappropriate internet activity on company computers and networks, such as downloading pornography or copyrighted music. Other concerns include minimizing the risk of viruses and malware and reducing excessive bandwidth use that can slow down the company’s electronic transmissions.
According to the 2007 Electronic Monitoring and Surveillance Survey, conducted by the American Management Association (AMA) and the ePolicy Institute, 66 percent of employers monitored internet use, 65 percent blocked websites, and 43 percent monitored email. The most common types of websites blocked by companies cited in the 2007 survey were adult sites (96 percent), followed by gaming (61 percent), social media (50 percent), entertainment (40 percent), shopping (27 percent), and sports (21 percent).
Many companies have implemented acceptable-use policies, or internet use policies, that provide written guidelines regarding the use of company computers, digital devices, and internet access and outline the consequences for violating these rules. According to the 2007 survey, 30 percent of employers had fired employees for internet misuse, with viewing and downloading inappropriate material the most common offense (84 percent), followed by violations of company policy (48 percent) and excessive personal use (34 percent).
Not all companies oppose personal internet use during the workday. Many employers believe that restricting personal use of the internet during the workday would have a negative effect on employee morale, team building, and creativity. Others allow employees to access the internet for personal use for a limited time each day, or as a reward for high performance or completing a work task. In addition, there is an increasing body of research to suggest that excessive employee monitoring can increase employee stress, decrease morale, and undermine trust in management, potentially negating any benefits to productivity and often resulting in greater employee turnover.
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