According to a recent article, 28 percent of employers report that they have fired employees for using the Internet for non-work-related activity, such as shopping online or checking Facebook, during the workday. In apparent support of the frequency of those terminations, the same article cited statistics that one in four workers admit that, during a typical workday, they will spend at least an hour on personal calls, emails or texts, and that twenty-two percent of those surveyed estimate that they spend an hour or more surfing the Internet, browsing photos, and related personal activities.
These statistics might lead a reasonable employer to conclude that employees should not be permitted to have Internet access at work. But in these days of smartphones and Apple Watches, how do employers enforce an Internet ban? And do they want to?
The answer is that they likely do not. There is no question that the Internet is a huge distraction at work. It is well-known that employees can waste hours of working time searching the Internet and shopping on-line. But it also is used as a resource for many work-related purposes: networking through LinkedIn and other sites; conducting research about products and services that are related to a company's business; and more.
How can an employer strike a happy medium? There is no question that employers need to have policies that ban the abuse of Internet access. If employees do not have the need to access the Internet in connection with their jobs (it seems unlikely, but there are many jobs where this is still the case), employers may want to limit their employees' Internet access to breaks or lunchtime. Otherwise, when employers are confronted with complaints or other evidence of employees spending hours on the Internet on non-work-related pursuits (or, worse, on wholly inappropriate pursuits like pornography), they need to review the search history and determine whether discipline is appropriate.
For some employers, a ban may make sense. For example, employees in safety-sensitive or health-related jobs, where complete focus is required at all times, may be putting others in jeopardy if distracted by surfing the Internet. Again, employers need to examine their employees' job duties against the reality of today's Internet-dependent culture, and decide what kinds of limits make sense in their workplace.
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