The Internet @ Work

[Boy With A Problem]

Here's the policy where I work - obviously no access to this site during working hours - it's a pain in the ass - but does it mean people are more productive? - discuss

Purpose
The purpose of this policy is to control the use and access to the Internet via the Company's PC's by use of a 'Proxy Server.

Responsibilities
It is everyone's responsibility to ensure that e-mail and the internet is used appropriately and prudently in line with the Company's E-mail and Internet Access Policy and Guide to Ethical Conduct booklet.

Policy and Procedure

Internet
To assist compliance with corporate policy on Internet access, the organization has software to control/monitor access. This software will prevent access to prohibited sites. The software will also log all accesses to websites, which will be available to auditors and the HR Department.



Prohibited Sites

The following sites will be totally prohibited:

Adult/Sexually Explicit
Chat
Criminal Skills
Drugs & Alcohol
Gambling
Games
Glamour & Intimate Apparel
Hacking
Hate
Kids Sites
Personal & Dating
Sex Education
Streaming Media
Violence
Weapons


Leisure Sites

Due to the increasing traffic levels across our network, a decision has been made to limit access to non-business related websites during peak business hours. Access to these websites is filtered through the prohibited control software and will not be possible between the hours of 06:00 and 18:00 (GMT). You should not attempt to access these sites during your normal working day and this restricted access also applies to those working outside of the normal office hours. These sites include:


Advertisements
Arts & Entertainment
Foods & Drinks
Hobbies & Recreation
Job Search and Career Development
Lifestyle & Cultures
Motor Vehicles
Photo Search
Real Estate
Religion
Shopping
Sport


Business Sites

The following Business related sites will be available at all times:


Education
Finance & Investment
Government & Politics
Health & Medicine
News
Reference
Search Engines
Travel

[selfmademug]

Responsibilities
It is everyone's responsibility to ensure that e-mail and the internet is used appropriately and prudently

Let's hope they preserve access to grammar self-help sites.

[Who Shot Sam?]

I feel your pain, BWAP.

What bothers me is that people's professional lives are increasingly impinging on their personal time. I've spent plenty of Saturdays and Sundays performing various work-related activities. Yet the same employers who rob employees of their leisure time and cut back on holidays (especially here in the States) are asking employees to cut themselves off from all personal activities in the workplace.

The ban on porn, gambling sites, etc. I understand. The other stuff just seems like the work of an overzealous HR or IT department.

[Boy With A Problem]

SMM wrote:

Let's hope they preserve access to grammar self-help sites

That may have been my slap dash editing as I copied the policy from Adobe -

WSS -

I agree completely and the same company in the US manages to filter porn and gambling. But what about the people that abuse it? Should companies monitor what people are looking at on company machines?

What about e-mail? If I send a personal e-mail to a friend, from my work pc - with my work e-mail account and I drop a couple of f-bombs - should I be taken to task. Should they be looking at my personal e-mails? [/quote]

[so lacklustre]

All employers are bastards.

I can access most sites from work but gambling sites and games sites, including fantasy sports sites are blocked. I presume porn sites are also blocked but I've never tried. I'm not meant to visit chat sites, but can get here (so maybe forums are acceptable), although I rarely post from work.

I suspect that the fascist attitude of some companies embitters their staff, thereby getting less productivity, and leading to things like staff stealing stuff etc etc.. Will also lead to a higher staff turnover which lowers productivity further and costs the company more in training etc.

[Poppet]

if i recall correctly, any email sent from your work account is the property of your employer.

so sending email to a bud from your work account and dropping f-bombs might well get you canned.

thus, i have gmail and yahoo accounts to reach my buds. there i can say whatever the fuck i want.



realizing all the time that whatever i send might well be archived for a billion years, searchable, or might appear one day as a headline in the NYTimes. email is NOT private correspondence, though we generally use it that way.

(and don't get me started on MY employer. see previous threads i started about this lovely department.)

[Otis Westinghouse]

At my place a couple of people were caught looking at porn or gambling sites, or whatever, and wide-sweeping bans were introduced for everyone. There are some ridiculous asoects to this, e.g. my work regularly involves choosing teenage models for photo shoots and in one case we could select boys but not girls. One zealous moron decided to ban all sports-related stuff, so I couldn't check facts, let alone fantasy football, but it turned out this was without his boss's approval and sports were returned. Yahoo and Hotmail are banned, but gmail isn't (yet!), and this board isn't either, though I almost never look at it there.

[stormwarning]

Yes it's a bit troublesome but not as troublesome as, say, working on a coalface or cleaning public toilets.

Good point though, if we don't stop these fascists now they'll soon be removing my mini-bar, TV and DVD player from my office, then I'd have to WORK for my wage...

[Boy With A Problem]

poppet wrote:

if i recall correctly, any email sent from your work account is the property of your employer.

so sending email to a bud from your work account and dropping f-bombs might well get you canned.

thus, i have gmail and yahoo accounts to reach my buds. there i can say whatever the fuck i want.

Does a company have rights of ownership to e-mails you send from other accounts? Couldn't they argue that because an e-mail was sent on their equipment, via their network, from their IP address it is their property?

[miss buenos aires]

Gosh, if I couldn't access Yahoo!Games, I might have spent the last week preparing a handover note for my replacement, putting together the binders that my boss requested, figuring out the remnants of my tax situation...has anyone ever played Insaniquarium? It gives me an enormous feeling of accomplishment, feeding my fish, keeping them safe from aliens...

[Extreme Honey]

I've played that before but It's way toooo addictive and long. Go to http://www.addictingames.com to play some good games. It's the best way to completely ignore your universtiy prof.

[selfmademug]

I'm not into online games but I have gotten quite addicted to playing chess against the computer when I'm home. I only just learned this year, so I still suck, but with the program adjusted to the easiest level I can now win a good deal of the time. It has become a joke between my son and me to spout the automated voice (this is the Mac's own chess program) that says, "The game. Is a draw."

[bambooneedle]

poppet wrote:

if i recall correctly, any email sent from your work account is the property of your employer.

so sending email to a bud from your work account and dropping f-bombs might well get you canned.

thus, i have gmail and yahoo accounts to reach my buds. there i can say whatever the fuck i want.

Does a company have rights of ownership to e-mails you send from other accounts? Couldn't they argue that because an e-mail was sent on their equipment, via their network, from their IP address it is their property?

If it is their computers employers are worried about, perhaps they wouldn't mind you having a second computer for any personal usage purposes while at work. You could write a simple contract overriding the conduct booklet in matters of practical concern specified, get cheap little portable numbers, hook 'em up to your mobile phone, other devices...

[verbal gymnastics]

If I wasn't able to access this site from work I wouldn't be here. So if you want to write complaints to my employer...

[bambooneedle]

Or, as an alternative to my idea above, have a second 'personal' hard-drive installed.

[spooky girlfriend]

I used to work for a law firm and they hired a guy in part just to sit and review phone numbers that had been dialed, how long the conversations to each phone number lasted, and every web site that had been clicked on and by whom.

Thank God I got this easy gig of raising four kids so I could have clear access to the net.

[selfmademug]

Or, as an alternative to my idea above, have a second 'personal' hard-drive installed.

In most cases the companies are not concerned for their hardware-- they have firewalls for that sort of thing-- they're concerned about time. And I suspect that even your own personally-purchased devices, if used via a company network, would be legal fair game in terms of snooping.

[Mr. Average]

Hey, business is business. And a good manager can use internet access as a perk, and personal email allowances as a perk.

I held a position where I had 40 direct and indirect reports through 5 supervisors. I was absolutely astonished to discover the amount of time lost on frivilous internet wanderings and personal emails. Personal phone call abuse can reach twenty calls a day for a technical support rep who sits at their desk all day. When you annualize these distractions, and if they also smoke, factor in the time per day that the average smoker spends outside the facility enjoying smokes (in most cases 8-14 minutes per hour) you find a real load on efficiency, productivity, and custoemr satisfaction. The problem for a good manager, then, is how do you manage this when 25% are the primary offenders and 75% are not, but the sands shift from week to week (some weeks, different mix of employee's inthe 25% category). In general, companies mandate a policy that affects everyone.

With abuse and documentation, I turned off access at that persons workstation. At review time, the employee's who stated that they had absolutely zero time to stay updated on the current and new product offerings that they were expected to deliver front line support on where almost always the worst offenders. The employee's who performed in an exemplary manner used the internet and made some personal calls and wrote some personal emails, but they were considerate of the priviledge and did not allow it to compete with their productivity. Thus, in my department, it was a perk for those achieving a certain rating or higher on their review.

If I did not apply some controls, the time and productivity cost losses are astronomical.

[Who Shot Sam?]

Hey, business is business. And a good manager can use internet access as a perk, and personal email allowances as a perk.

I held a position where I had 40 direct and indirect reports through 5 supervisors. I was absolutely astonished to discover the amount of time lost on frivilous internet wanderings and personal emails. Personal phone call abuse can reach twenty calls a day for a technical support rep who sits at their desk all day. When you annualize these distractions, and if they also smoke, factor in the time per day that the average smoker spends outside the facility enjoying smokes (in most cases 8-14 minutes per hour) you find a real load on efficiency, productivity, and custoemr satisfaction. The problem for a good manager, then, is how do you manage this when 25% are the primary offenders and 75% are not, but the sands shift from week to week (some weeks, different mix of employee's inthe 25% category). In general, companies mandate a policy that affects everyone.

With abuse and documentation, I turned off access at that persons workstation. At review time, the employee's who stated that they had absolutely zero time to stay updated on the current and new product offerings that they were expected to deliver front line support on where almost always the worst offenders. The employee's who performed in an exemplary manner used the internet and made some personal calls and wrote some personal emails, but they were considerate of the priviledge and did not allow it to compete with their productivity. Thus, in my department, it was a perk for those achieving a certain rating or higher on their review.

If I did not apply some controls, the time and productivity cost losses are astronomical.

Did you let them out of the Habitrail to hop around on the carpet occasionally?

Just kidding!

[bambooneedle]

Or, as an alternative to my idea above, have a second 'personal' hard-drive installed.

In most cases the companies are not concerned for their hardware-- they have firewalls for that sort of thing-- they're concerned about time.

I know in most cases they might be concerned about time and wrote: "if it is their computers employers are worried about," earlier.

And I suspect that even your own personally-purchased devices, if used via a company network, would be legal fair game in terms of snooping.

By the employer? You can protect against that via a legal contract. So, if it's your equipment, they don't own it and are not responsible for it either. In the case of not being one of their IPs, it should have nothing to do with them, but of course if someone may compromise their network I can understand them having objections.

[miss buenos aires]

Sometimes I wish someone would take away my Internet, just so I could finally get some work done...

[Who Shot Sam?]

Sometimes I wish someone would take away my Internet, just so I could finally get some work done...

You and Mr. A need to hook up!

[stormwarning]

1. Companies are liable for all mail sent via their company mail system.
2. Access to personal mail from a company PC is banned because of the threat of viruses - there's too many dumb people out there who just click on any attachment they receive.
3. Many sites are blocked because of the constant threat of downloading a virus or some other kind of spyware onto a company PC.

In my experience there has been an evolution of internet controls:
In the early days, access to sites simply used to be recorded.

After complaints from many women about men accessing porn sites during work hours and discussing the site with their colleagues, access to porn sites were banned. Similar events and legal cases resulted in a lockdown of religious and political sites.

After several cases of private emails with company headers receiving world wide attention for some kind of scandal, stricter rules on use of company email were introducd

The ever present threat of viruses brought in a new generation of control - no access to hotmail or other sites, very restricted browsing, no downloading of software, especially exe, zip, pl files etc.

There's a good reason for the controls - namely that they are in place to protect the company's reputation and the network availability.

I think BWAP's company are close to getting it right by banning sites which could cause problems for the company. However, the banning of shopping, real estate and lifestyle sites (for example) means they've punished the whole company for the abuse by a few individuals. They should find other ways of controlling employees who spend too much time browsing.