The SF Chronicle has an interesting article this morning on a subject that I'm sure is near and dear to all of us, surfing at work and using your computer for personal purposes, termed "cyberslacking".

The article discusses how the process of employers monitoring their employees is becoming increasingly common as tools come to market to allow that to be done, but the interesting part is the legal and ethical questions. As of right now, the law is on the side of your employer in general, but that could be changing in the future.



Personally I can see both sides of the argument and I agree with portions of both of them.

Questions for debate:
1. What is more important, your right to privacy or your employer's right to ensure you are productive?

2. Should employers be allowed to monitor their employees without their knowledge, or should they be required to disclose that in an employment contract as suggested by SB1841?

3. Is there a point at which employers should allow computer and internet use for personal purposes (i.e. as long as nothing illegal is going on, you aren't surfing for pornography, and it doesn't effect your job performance) or is it an all or none deal? Put yourself in the shoes of an employer, what would you personally feel is an acceptable personal use policy if it were solely your decision?

1. What is more important, your right to privacy or your employer's right to ensure you are productive?
In general, it is the company's property you are using to surf the 'net with. It is their prerogative how it is used. The employer certainly has a greater right to your productivity than you have a right to privacy about how you are using their equipment.

2. Should employers be allowed to monitor their employees without their knowledge, or should they be required to disclose that in an employment contract as suggested by SB1841?
I think the employer should be required to remind their employess, upon orientation, about its policy regarding computer use (or other office equipment used, such as copiers, etc). That way, the policy is known and the disciplinary actions will also be known in advance.

3. Is there a point at which employers should allow computer and internet use for personal purposes (i.e. as long as nothing illegal is going on, you aren't surfing for pornography, and it doesn't effect your job performance) or is it an all or none deal? Put yourself in the shoes of an employer, what would you personally feel is an acceptable personal use policy if it were solely your decision?
My personal philosophy: the employer is paying you to do a job. If you do that job, they should be satisfied enough to allow you to use any remaining time any way you want.

To me, cracking down on "water cooler" talk is the same: as long as the employees are doing their job, who cares that they chat about yesterday's football game?

Of course, that is assuming that the employee is hitting his goals for jobs to be done. If the employee is constantly late on assignments, does sloppy work, or other negatives, than certainly cracking down on "non-work" activities is in order.

As long as my employees are reasonably dedicated and can get the job done on time, I don't care if they play solitaire as a stress relief. I also don't care if they contribute at AD.

1. What is more important, your right to privacy or your employer's right to ensure you are productive?
Hey, if they're on the clock, it's my time and my property they are using. Theoretically, I would think that trumps any "right to privacy" in a private business.

2. Should employers be allowed to monitor their employees without their knowledge, or should they be required to disclose that in an employment contract as suggested by SB1841?
Actually, we do this as part of our employee orientation. Our handbook lists a policy which says that "Employee computer and email use may be monitored at any time, with or without notice to the employee, at any time."

Now, that said, I do not have any monitoring software installed, and only had one instance in the last 3 years where I even considered it (an employee was stealing), but we were able to obtain the evidence we needed in another way.

3. Is there a point at which employers should allow computer and internet use for personal purposes (i.e. as long as nothing illegal is going on, you aren't surfing for pornography, and it doesn't effect your job performance) or is it an all or none deal? Put yourself in the shoes of an employer, what would you personally feel is an acceptable personal use policy if it were solely your decision?
Well, I am an employer, and it is my decision. As I noted above, we do let employees know what we expect, and what can happen at the time they are hired. However, I don't really have a problem with a little "net surfing" or sending personal emails, as long as the time spent is relatively short, and the work is getting done. We do prohibit the use of the various chat programs (AIM, Trillian, etc.) altogether, as these seem to be the biggest problem with the younger people these days. If things do start to get out of hand with an employee, a word to the wise is usually sufficient.

I'll chime in with what Amlord and Niteguy have said, with my own spin.

1. What is more important, your right to privacy or your employer's right to ensure you are productive?
In my use of the net at work, which I am doing right now, I am perfectly well aware that anything I do or say could put me in breach of company rules.
My understanding is that when I'm at work, I don't have a right to privacy. I can't go sit on the can for an hour at a time, or while away hours calling my friends on the company phone.
However, the reasons I can't do these things boil down to the fact that I can't be productive while locked in a toilet cubicle, nor when I am entirely engaged in phone conversations.
My old company generally only used phone or internet records as an easy and quick way to get rid of staff that were underperforming in other areas. Trying to turn around low performance in a staff member is a long and painful process for all concerned (and not just because of Britain's employment laws that make it relatively slow to sack anyone for anything short of gross misconduct). It's just easier to sack them because they spend too long on the phone.

2. Should employers be allowed to monitor their employees without their knowledge, or should they be required to disclose that in an employment contract as suggested by SB1841?
I think it is fair to expect that such a thing would be spelled out in a contract, if both the internet usage policy and, critically, the contract, exist. If there is no contract, internet usage is the least of the worries for the employer and employee.

3. Is there a point at which employers should allow computer and internet use for personal purposes (i.e. as long as nothing illegal is going on, you aren't surfing for pornography, and it doesn't effect your job performance) or is it an all or none deal? Put yourself in the shoes of an employer, what would you personally feel is an acceptable personal use policy if it were solely your decision?

Yes, absolutely. I strongly believe that the productivity damage done by non-productive activity is what, I should be disciplined for, if anything. Precisely how I am unproductive is something that can then be addressed as necessary.

In other words, if I get the job done to a high standard and to legal and ethical requirements, if also customers and fellow workers are happy with my work, and if I am advancing the company's interests, it should not matter if I spend 39 hours of the working week gossiping on the phone while openly surfing pornographic websites and only 1 hour doing useful work. Go shout at the head-down mouse in the corner who hasn't done anything productive in the corner since he or she started 20 years ago and has managed to get away with it precisely because he or she follows the company's policy manual to the letter.

We don't need more rules, we need better quality management. In fact, I would go so far as to say that we only need one (golden) rule for employees - "Don't become a problem".

For example, at my current company, most staff do not have internet access. And the business culture is quite reasonable, and quite disciplined, on private phone use (if permission is asked for and given, it is fine, provided the Golden Rule is not broken.

However, several, mostly cultural, things are massive barriers to productivity. In no particular order:

1. It's a small and informal company, so people have developed a habit of physically going to talk to people instead of using email or phone calls. Not a bad thing in itself, but when someone arrives at your desk to find you busy on the phone, they will usually hover silently, perhaps perching on your desk. Their urgent-but-not-important monkey becomes yours - you have to drop what you're doing, or what you planned to do next, to deal with their query, which often only arises because they don't know how use a system query or haven't thought things through themselves. Consequently, one of my first and most lasting observations since I came here in February 2004 is that nobody in the business has any time management skills whatsoever, largely because the business culture doesn't let anyone develop them. (Coming in from outside, I've been lucky that I already knew how to politely but firmly ask people if I could get back to them with an answer at an agreed time if I'm busy, which nobody has minded so far.)

2. Poor project management - we've never got time to plan, but we've always got time to do everything else twice. (The business is, at least, aware of this - I was taken on to oversee project management across the business.) Deadlines are invariable plucked form the air with no basis in fact, so the first one always has to move. Time estimation is poor, so the first planned deadline is unrealistic. Even the third (on this current project, on which I am simply a resource, not PM) is close to blowing, largely because it has been imposed from above by a board impatient at the deadline already having been moved twice.

3. Casual, non-work conversations go on for hours. Just this week, I saw six people (half the purchasing & customer services departments) spend over an hour discussing second homes abroad. I was part of the conversation, but kept working on my PC all the while. Nobody else did - they were just talking.

4. Nobody has a clue how to run meetings, right up to an including the board (arguably they are worst at them). Agendas are sketchy at best, nobody ever dares set a fixed end time (meetings that start at 2pm often go on until 6 or later, usually because one person doesn't accept a majority decision), and minutes are exhausting verbatim transcripts that make it nigh-on impossible to identify any concrete actions.

5. Objectives (including meeting action points) are rarely SMART, most often missing any kind of deadline.

But enough of my workplace rant, my main point is that having a defined business process for managing unusual, unexpected or unwelcome events (be it a sudden drop in a person's performance, or a sudden increase in supplier prices), while setting staff defined and agreed objectives but leaving them as much freedom as possible on how to achieve them isn't just civilised and pleasant to work in, it's good business. If you, as boss, have to spend all your time checking the minutiae of how your employees fill their days, not only are they wasting their time, you are wasting yours. Set them tasks to do each day, and check periodically to see how they get on. If there is a problem, deal with it there and then.

Julian sounds like you share the same 'small company' woes as I do!

I work in a 12 person start up consultancy and - honestly - there's no way I could waste my time more effectively than by doing what I'm told.

However to the question at hand:

1. What is more important, your right to privacy or your employer's right to ensure you are productive?


Personally I feel that my employer has to trust me and if they don't then they shouldn't employ me. My right to privacy is more important because I am productive and do my job. If my employer feels that I do not do my job, or am not productive enough, then they can fire me, but I see no reason why they should breach my privacy to find out WHY I am not doing my job.

2. Should employers be allowed to monitor their employees without their knowledge, or should they be required to disclose that in an employment contract as suggested by SB1841?

My company should treat me as a responsible adult or they should not hire me. You don't spy on responsilbe adults, you trust them to do their job, as I trust everyone else in the company to do theirs.


3. Is there a point at which employers should allow computer and internet use for personal purposes (i.e. as long as nothing illegal is going on, you aren't surfing for pornography, and it doesn't effect your job performance) or is it an all or none deal? Put yourself in the shoes of an employer, what would you personally feel is an acceptable personal use policy if it were solely your decision?

I think generally comfortable happy staff who work in a relaxed environment work more intelligently that staff in a stressful environment who feel that they are being monitored. Everyone understands not to view pornography and not to overdo email / surfing, why be draconian about it?