When Employee Use of Technology
Gets out of Hand

Do you remember the good old days when employee abuse of company time and property mainly involved making personal phone calls, sending personal mail through the mail room and occasionally appropriating office supplies such as envelopes, paper clips and ball-point pens? While these petty problems haven't exactly disappeared, the stakes have gotten higher as incidents of employee abuse of new technology are being reported at an alarming rate. These include, among other things, extensive e-mailing for non-company business and perusing the Internet for pleasure - all on company time.

As an example of how widespread the problem is, a recent study showed that the majority of bids on web auction sites such as eBay occur during working hours and that pornography sites register their greatest number of hits during the traditional workday between 9am and 5pm. Managers are at their wit's end looking for ways to stop the trend and to find a sensible solution to end the abuse. Their goal is to sensitize employees to the risks they expose themselves and their companies to and the cost that this practice imposes on the company.

As more and more companies are formulating new policies to deal with the abuse, some are already taking action to curb it. Dow Chemical Company fired 40 employees at one of its Texas plants for violating the company's e-mail policy, namely, storing and distributing sexually explicit and violent material. The material was found after an in-house investigation of more than 6,000 e-mail accounts. The firings were the second in several weeks for Dow, which also dismissed 50 employees and disciplined 200 others at another location for similar violations.

Clearly, the situation is such that companies now have to reexamine their policy manuals to see if they adequately deal with this alarming new development in employee behavior. Many businesses already have a policy in place. A survey taken recently by a West Coast employment law firm shows that nearly two-thirds of companies have a formal policy regulating employee use of voice mail, e-mail and Internet access.

To be truly effective, a policy must be reasonable and in keeping with the culture of the organization. Rules can't be too rigid and they can't be expected to anticipate every situation that may arise with regard to employee use of computers. They must also take into account other contingencies. For example, can an employee on lunch or coffee break send an e-mail to his or her spouse without coming under scrutiny?.

But having a clear policy isn't enough. Some companies are also adding two other factors - education and monitoring. The first involves making sure that every employee not only receives a copy of the policy but understands it thoroughly. Some companies even test their employees after a short period of employment. Even then, companies must continue to remind employees of the policy to prevent slippage. One company has gone so far as to insert a window on an employee's screen that pops up when he or she logs on. The window contains an abstract of the company's policy concerning personal use of the computer and requires the employee to check an on-screen box acknowledging he understands the policy.

Monitoring employee use is a little trickier than educating them. Another recent survey shows that while 83 percent of the respondents said they had the capacity to monitor employee use of the Internet, only 54 percent of them actually monitor. Their reasons run from not wanting to intrude on their employees and not knowing precisely how far to go in limiting Internet use to not wanting to discourage their employees' initiative and curiosity.

While the matter of solving the problem is still evolving, several things are clear. Unwarranted and unlimited Internet and e-mail usage by employees is a drain on productivity. In some specific instances, such as calling down sexually explicit material and sharing it with co-workers, such usage can also lead to legal problems for the company. In my next column, I'll offer some guidelines on how to deal with specific issues including managing e-mail, maintaining confidentiality and privacy, and restrictions concerning software and copyright.

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