Cyberslacking: What to do with net crazy employees

And every now and then, I come across something that really makes me think. For example,

businessweek.com had a debate between two people: Ermis Sfakiyanudis of eTelemetry and Bruce Barry of Vanderbuilt University.

The two took opposing views on the subject of employee Internet usage – particulary on the subject of social networking sites.

Sfakiyanudis, who argues in favor of strict boundaries, says fantasy football or social network sites such as face

book.com may boost employee morale, overuse can cause the company big dollars, particularly in the areas of overtime pay or late work.

In addition, the author points out workers who visit blog sites can leave company fingerprints on postings. Regardless of the person’s views, offensive or not, the issue poses a liability question.

To support the argument, Sfakiyanudis cites a study that reported businesses related to Fantasyfootball.com could lose profits between $275 million and $435 million weekly.

In contrast, Barry says its more of a productivity question.

“What’s really relevant to the manager is actual job performance,” he says. “Employers should certainly feel free to discipline workers who abuse the privilege of Internet access to the detriment of their productivity, just as they would show little tolerance for any other behavior that significantly impairs performance.”

Barry says a zero-tolerance would be better suited for robots, but for humans who require communicative tools such as the Internet, it’s not bad thing.

He expands his argument to include e-mail as well.

“So it’s acceptable to spend a break reading an online article at Business

Week.com but not playing online computer games? It’s reasonable to e-mail a colleague to arrange lunch but not to post a comment on his facebook page? Will I be fired for making a passing reference to last night’s game in an interoffice e-mail?”

As of Sept. 21, Barry is backed by everyone who has left a comment on the debate. All argue employees should be allowed to peruse the net at their own discretion, as long as work doesn’t suffer.

So, where do you draw the line? What does your business consider acceptable? How about you?

Personally, I find the comments on the debate hollow. As an employee, I don’t want someone bearing down on me checking to be sure I’m not messing around online. However, I feel it’s perfectly acceptable to have an honest assessment made regarding Internet usage.

Why?

The one thing I don’t see in these comments is employees saying “yeah, maybe I spend a little too much time goofing around.” Sadly, I also haven’t seen any point of view from management – what do they think? How do they assess their own usage?

Drawing these acceptable lines, I think, is impossible. For a company to dictate a specified amount of time and enforce it regularly would be a equal or greater expense.

Employees don’t have the right to do what they want as long as work is getting done.

Employers have every right to know what their employees are doing online. It’s their business (pun intended).

And remember, if you give a mouse a cookie ...

Employees know what their limits are.

Employers don’t need to crackdown on employees precious Web time, but rather enforce using common sense when at work.

Spell out the acceptable usage boundaries. If the workflow is suffering, as the employee to take a self audit. The problem may fix itself.

To view both sides in their entirety, visit http://www.businessweek.com/debateroom/?chan=top+news_top+news+index.