Monitoring Employees Internet Usage

I often get some asked by executives if we can monitor their employees’ internet usage. Of course we can. We may or may not need the client to purchase some software for us to do so. But, the important question is “Why?” Why monitor employee’s internet usage?

There are some legitimate reasons to do so. Among them are to make sure scarce bandwidth is not being used for frivolous tasks and to ensure employees are not engaging in illegal, unethical, or harassing behaviors. But when I’m told that “I want to make sure our employees aren’t wasting their time on the internet,” my response is “How would you like them to waste their time?”.

To be sure, the internet can be a time-sink. But so can the water cooler, the cafeteria, navel gazing, and phone calls. Producing reports for an executive that details how employees spend their time on the internet is not going to keep people from wasting time. It may well discourage people from wasting time on the internet, but I’m confident that they will find another way to waste time.

Another strategy is to deploy a firewall that prohibits certain sites and services. For instance, at one client, we block access to streaming media, instant messaging, social networking, gambling, porn, and hate groups. In my opinion, we should be blocking access only to porn, gambling, hate groups, and the like. This would allow employees to waste time updating their Facebook status, but is that such a bad thing?

The ubiquitousness of the internet and modern communications has caused many people to blur the lines between work and home/play/non-work. The younger the worker, the more likely she is to not feel that her job responsibilities are something she takes care of only M-F, 8-5. She may work remotely from home every night from 10 PM until midnight, because she feels she does her best work then and she doesn’t have to deal with interruptions. So, if she still comes into the office for a typical 8-5 shift, is it a problem that she spends an hour during the middle of the day updating her mountain-climbing blog?

Technology provides different tools for supervisors to use to manage their people. But, it doesn’t replace managing people. The best managers will see technological tools not as tools of enforcement, but rather as tools of engagement.