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Internet monitoring software watches you what you do on the internet ! |
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NEW YORK (CNNfn) - It's a quiet day at the office, and your boss is out to lunch. So you decide to check out how the stock market is doing. Or maybe you just want to find out if Patrick Ewing will be back in the line-up for the Knicks tonight.
It all seems innocent enough. But experts say employees who surf the Web from their office PCs are costing Corporate America more than $1 billion a year. And some companies are starting to crack down.
Most workers don't like to think about it, but in the age of the Internet and advances in technology, chances are someone at work is watching where you spend your online time. And if these sites are unrelated to your business or violate your company's Internet policy, it could cost you your job.
One manager at an East Coast Internet company who didn't want to be identified said he doesn't need employee monitoring software to notice a rise in work-time surfing.
"You hear people talking about going online at work all the time, shopping from their cubicles,?the manager said. "One guy was just telling me about the digital camera he bought on eBay . He was checking his e-mail constantly to see if his bid was the highest to get the camera, and it doesn't stop there. "People book vacations, buy presents, you name it. At work they have the kind of bandwidth that they just can't get at home and can do things so much faster, said the manager.
In response, many companies are on the offensive, using sophisticated Internet monitoring software to watch Internet access by user, which shows exactly which sites workers are logging on to, and for how long.
Cyberslackers
While the Web has greatly enabled workers to access information needed for the job, it has also enhanced loafers or "cyberslackers in their quest to do little work while collecting a paycheck.
Recently, Internet-related firings made headlines: 40 workers terminated at Stamford, Conn.-based Xerox). The New York Times canned 23 employees at its plant in Norfolk, Va. Among the offenses: workers were allegedly visiting pornographic sites and trading electronic porn pictures via e-mail.
Xerox spokeswoman Christa Carone said that when the company's Internet abusers were fired, reaction from employees was positive.
"Employees were even appreciative of the action we took against those workers,Carone said.
Carone said the fired workers were extreme cases, often spending as much as eight hours a day at porn and gambling sites. "We have stop talking about people who spent the majority of their day at these sites,Carone said.
Surfing steals money, bandwidth
About $1.05 billion -- or 30 percent of the $3.5 billion corporations spend each year on Internet access -- is wasted on recreational surfing, according to Scotts Valley, Calif.-basedSurfControl, a provider of products that allow corporations to keep tabs on where workers surf.
And, according to figures compiled by Elron Software of Burlington, Mass., a company loses $2,883 each week, or $149,916 a year, if 50 workers spend just 3 hours on recreational surfing during work hours. The figure, compiled with the help of market research firm NFO Interactive of Greenwich, Conn., is based on the U.S. Department of Labor estimate of $19.22 an hour in employer costs for employee compensation.
Online shopping a popular activity for employees
The San Diego-based Internet access management firm Websense, released a survey in October showing that online shopping grew almost 200 percent over the prior six months, while surfing on Internet porn sites slowed 48 percent within the same time frame.
A survey conducted by the American Management Association during the week of Dec. 13-15, 1999, among 1,139 firms found almost 21 percent reported an increased use of Internet connections for private or personal transactions. Of the 66 percent of firms that track, record or review telecommunications activities, 46 percent admitted monitoring office Internet connections, 12 percent plan to and 40 percent said they had no plans to keep tabs on employee surfing.
In addition, the survey said 64 percent of the companies had a formal, written policy regarding personal use of office Internet connections, and punishment for the private use of personal Net time was handed out by 35 percent of the surveyed firms. Of that figure, 11 percent terminated employees, 18 percent gave a formal reprimand and 17 percent issued an informal warning.
Internet access management firms also report that companies fear sexual harassment charges from employees whose co-workers hang out on porn sites during the workday. Conduct perceived as creating a hostile working environment raises a red flag for human resources managers, and Web access software can tag the offenders and put them on notice or on the unemployment bulletin
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