We have blurred the line between work life and personal life when we introduced the internet business. Now the question becomes is this incredible tool good or bad? Commonly known as “cyberslacking”; the act of surfing the web for personal gain during work hours is a legitimate cause of concern for managers across the globe.
Salary.com found that every day at least 64 percent of employees surf websites that have nothing to do with their jobs. The cost in dollars could be measured in billions if this is accurate, but what about the productivity that can’t be measured. How does cyberslacking affect employee productivity?
Massey University PhD student Andrea Polzer-Debruyne, who studied personal Internet use at work for her psychology thesis found that people whose employers tolerated a reasonable amount of personal emailing and other Internet use at work tended to be more open to doing work from home in their own time or making themselves available on-line to deal with clients or handle after-hours matters.
Some workers she surveyed said they felt the boundary between work and life is becoming increasingly blurred, with growing expectations of being available online for work at home. As a result, workers feel justified in shopping, banking and paying bills online at work and are therefore less resentful of being expected to carry out work duties outside office hours.
While cyberslacking has been portrayed as a negative behavior leading to loss in productivity and revenue, engaging in surfing for brief periods throughout the day appears to provide relief from fatigue and stress and may increase creativity and job satisfaction.
As an IT Consulting firm, our discussion does not lie in the rights or wrongs of cyberslacking but rather in the security trail that follows the surf. How can you keep your data secure while building employee productivity via internet use? We recently discussed the cost of a data breach and how to stay safe.
Our IT support provides analysis and implementation of processes to help keep your business secure and your employees happy. An in-depth evaluation will review, but is not limited to:
Protection by use of
- Virus Blockers
- Firewalls
- Virus and Spyware Protection
Protection through Filtering of
- Content Filtering
- Web & Email Security
- Ad Blockers
Think back to the days of smoke breaks and scheduled breaks. The internet has become our new “unofficial” break and may be giving employees and employers what they already had – just in a new format.