In school they call it “being on task.” At work it has more to do with honesty and productivity. But the question is really the same. Are employees on task, or on the Internet? A recent Gallup poll found that the average employee spends over 75 minutes per day using office computers for non-business related activities. Do the math and come up with an unacceptable loss of company revenue for missing productivity.
What kinds of activity were measured by Gallup? From the serious of pornography and gambling to the innocent instant messaging, chat programs, social media and personal email. Little seconds here and there throughout the day tend to add up. The serious presenting liability and potential fines and the innocent draining company bandwidth and employee time. Not to mention the greater possibility of exposure to malware and virus infections which can mean costly cleanup or even business down time.
Because of the reality even among “good and honest” employees, a monitoring system is invaluable in protecting performance and providing cost savings. Under the adage, “What’s inspected is expected,” employees who know a monitoring system is in place will be less likely to indulge in the occasional slip.
Simply knowing that there are monitoring systems is a great starting point. GFI Web Monitor is a good example of a monitoring program that uses a smart dashboard to give a complete view of the web-browsing activities occurring on your network. You can sort information by category, website and user. In this way you can shape the mass of data into something manageable and useful without being inundated by unnecessary information.
Be sure to think through the legal issues. Provide a policy statement to employees’ expectations and the reality that online activities are monitored. For the technical side, give Alliant a call. 626.461.1300.
