Monitoring Employees Internet Use

Why more and more businesses monitor private Internet use during work hours, and should they?

 


By: Eric Durrand


The advent of technology is a wonderful thing. We can now shop, communicate with friends, do our errands, and be entertained from a single machine: our Internet-enabled PC. When, however, we do all those private activity from a machine situated in a business office, and when we are getting paid to sit in that office, these beneficial activities get another name: cyber-slacking.

Cyber-slacking is a huge drain on today's businesses, with employees writing personal e-mails, reading personal-interest news, doing their errands, and even gambling or surfing to pornography sites during work hours! Businesses can suffer a tremendous productivity loss: Even if your company has only 10 Internet users, each getting paid an annual salary of $45,000, and each spending no more than 30 minutes a day on personal Internet activities during work hours. That, according to this useful productivity calculator, is an annual cost of $28,125 in lost productivity, or a weekly cost of $540!


Spying after Employees?It comes as no surprise, therefore, than employers are doing whatever they can to make sure employees use their Internet time to proper activities only, and do not waste company resources and time. Employee surveillance software sales are estimated at a $140 million a year, and a survey conducted by the American Management Association and ePolicy Institute in 2005 indicates that 76% of employers monitor Internet use and 55% retain and review e-mail messages.

Is this legal? The answer is complex. In the past few years, many privacy lawsuits have been filed by employees, often involving employer monitoring of e-mail and the Internet. Usually the lawsuits have been filed under state invasion of privacy actions. For the lawsuit to be successful, in general, the employee must show that he or she had a reasonable expectation of privacy in the communication at issue. Because invasion of privacy is a state law claim, the standards vary among jurisdictions. So far, most cases have allowed employers to monitor employees' use of company e-mail and the Internet. However, the case is not always clear cut.


Besides the legal question, an employer needs to ask himself whether monitoring is in his best interest in the long run. Monitoring employee's Internet use can lower morale, and give employees the feeling of not being trusted. Whatever the benefits of monitoring, creating resentful, unmotivated employees is not the solution.

What is the best, most fair and effective solution then? To create, publicize, and enforce an Internet use policy for employees. The policy should dictate:

  1. Which uses are legitimate, and which are not.
  2. When, for how long, and in what manner, if at all, can employees use the company's Internet resources for personal purposes (such as sending a personal e-mail).
  3. What kind of monitoring is enforced.
  4. What types of sanctions can an employee expect based on different violations (A public censure? A fine? Getting fired?)
Once a policy is in place, and everyone is aware of it, it should be enforced regularly. Forbidden Internet sites can be blocked using content filtering solutions, and monitoring can be applied according the policy, using tools such as WebBalanced, NetTracker, Cyber-Snoop, SpectorSoft, and WebSense.

Whatever you do, it is important not to overreact to employees personal use of company's Internet resources. Just like with company phones, photocopiers, and printers - there should be a well reasoned policy in place that legitimizes reasonable personal usage, and separates it from wasteful, unreasonable use - motivating employees to work efficiently, without making them feel that the Big Brother is always watchful.