Filtering Can Save $185,000/Year for 50-Employee Company
The lure of the Internet continues to sap productivity at work and in some cases leave businesses vulnerable to potentially expensive lawsuits, according to a series of reports released in recent months. The new data highlights the need for online filtering programs like Safe Eyes Business, which can reclaim more than $185,000 worth of lost work time for a 50-person company in which $15-an-hour employees spend just one hour a day in personal Web surfing.
In March, for example, Nielsen’s quarterly Three Screen Report on U.S. media usage showed that approximately 44% of all online video is being viewed in the workplace. In April, it was revealed that U.S. Securities & Exchange Commission employees spent up to eight hours a day accessing Internet porn while the country was in the throes of an economic meltdown. The same month, Nielsen disclosed that more than 21 million Americans – or 29% of working adults – now access adult websites from work computers.
Last year, Nucleus Research released the results of an employee survey showing that companies that allow users to access Facebook in the workplace lose an average of 1.5% in total employee productivity. Some employees said they accessed their Facebook accounts as much as two hours a day on the job, with 87% of those surveyed admitting that they had no clear business reason for using the social network.
And just two months ago, the Commissioner of Human Resources in Vermont reported that Internet usage at the agency dropped by 25% – a full 2,300 hours – in the first week of a new program designed to monitor their web viewing habits. The change suggests that state employees were squandering the equivalent of 57 full-time positions per week, or almost 120,000 employee hours over the course of a year.
“Web surfing on company time robs the employer of paid work, and it exposes companies to legal liabilities associated with inappropriate or illegally downloaded content,� said InternetSafety.com CEO Forrest Collier. “The mere presence of pornography in the workplace is grounds for a sexual harassment lawsuit, which can cost an average $250,000. Even a small company can lose tens of thousands of dollars in work time over the course of a year from cyberslacking.�
InternetSafety.com’s Safe Eyes Business can stop the hemorrhaging by blocking computer access to selected categories of websites in the office or on the road for just $24.95 per seat per year. The cost for the 50-employee company mentioned earlier would be just $1,250 compared to $187,500 lost to social networking, online shopping and other non-work pursuits without a filtering program, yielding a net productivity gain of more than $185,000 by eliminating online distractions.
Filed under: Internet Safety News
I find it rather silly to measure productivity simply as time spent not wasteing time. That’s fine for a production line, but there are many factors effecting productivity.
For example, in my own job, we have workers to meet peek demand. That means much of the time we have people sitting around with nothing to do – often browsing the web or just chatting, getting paid for nothing much. Their job is to be there, and ready to jump into action the moment a call comes in. It doesn’t matter if they spend four hours a day on personal browsing, so long as they are able to drop it at a moment’s notice when they are needed.
Without the slack, service would slow to a crawl as soon as the unpredictable demand got above capacity.