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Should employees have access to the Web at work?

All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy, and being restricted from the Internet at work may also make you less productive.In the latest New Yorker, James Surowiecki writes "In Praise of Distraction," a column advocating that a little playtime at work may actually be a good thing, counter to companies that restrict employee access to the Web as a way of maximizing work efficiency.  That kind
Screenshot of the Association of Local Government Auditors' chart that shows the 10 websites where Maricopa County employees spent the most Web time in the 2010 study.
Screenshot of the Association of Local Government Auditors' chart that shows the 10 websites where Maricopa County employees spent the most Web time in the 2010 study.Today

All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy, and being restricted from the Internet at work may also make you less productive.

In the latest New Yorker, James Surowiecki writes "In Praise of Distraction," a column advocating that a little playtime at work may actually be a good thing, counter to companies that restrict employee access to the Web as a way of maximizing work efficiency.  

That kind of thinking has led to the proliferation of online monitoring programs, which in turn have heated up the debate over employee privacy and employers who want to exercise more security. These programs sometimes cite unsubstantiated statistics — the 30 to 40 percent loss in productivity by Web-using abusers seems most repeated — but there are some figures that should give employers something to think about.

The Association of Local Government Auditors released a report in spring 2010 that outlined the dangers of allowing workers unbridled Web access, concerns echoed by many employers, no doubt:

  • Productivity loss from personal Web use during working hours.
  • Bandwidth and storage shortages from peer to-peer file sharing and audio/video streaming.
  • Legal liabilities from inappropriate Web activity.
  • Backdoor access for viruses from instant messaging programs and personal, Web-based e-mail use.

They chose five hours as the browsing time it would take to trigger a report of potential abuse for employees in Maricopa County, Arizona in Phoenix. "In fiscal year 2009, over 900 County Internet users (out of 7,700) averaged more than 5 hours of usage per day. County employees in general averaged one hour of usage per day."

But it turned out, some of the surfing was work-related.

During one review, an employee's time logged on the internet appeared to be non-business; he spent an entire day researching aquarium supply websites. Management research revealed that the usage was related to an aquarium under construction in the department's lobby.

During the five-day test, nearly 16,000 hours were logged on websites, with Microsoft at the top of the heap and Google close behind.

"Several of these sites could be work-related, such as Microsoft, Maricopa.gov, and Leonardo MD. Google and Yahoo were typically used to search the Internet and to access personal e-mail accounts."

While it may not be music to every employer's ears, looks like many of these government employees helped pass the time listening to Internet radio over their headphones (or in their offices, if they had them), with nearly 2,000 hours logged in fiscal year 2008. 

But Surowiecki makes some compelling points, using one study in particular to illustrate his hypothesis.

A new study, done at the University of Copenhagen, asked participants to perform a simple task — watch videos of people passing balls and count the number of passes. But first they were presented with a distraction. One group of participants had a funny video come up on their screens; the rest saw a message telling them that a funny video was available if they clicked a button, but they were told not to watch it. After ten minutes, during which people in the second group could hear those in the first laughing at the video, everyone set to the task of counting the number of passes. And the curious result was that those who hadn’t watched the comedy video made significantly more mistakes than those who had. You might have thought that those who had spent the previous ten minutes laughing would become distracted and careless. Instead, it was the act of following company policy and not clicking that button that eroded people’s ability to focus and concentrate.

Surowiecki's bottom line: "The implication is that asking people to regulate their behavior without interruption (by, say, never going online at work) may very well make them less focused and less effective."

So perhaps it's better to give employees an outlet for the temptation, rather than cut them off completely from sites that have become part of daily life?

Referring to that Copenhagen study, the New Yorker article suggests "Internet breaks," which would be not so different from coffee breaks. Then again, with the popularity of smartphones, those employees who do step away for a brief cuppa joe are already probably checking their Facebook, their Gmail or tweeting while they wait in line for their caffeine fix.

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