If 1,000 workers each spent an hour a day on the internet, that would cost an average company about $35m a year
There are now more than 30 different companies offering filtering technology, mainly US-centric, but eager to cash in on the growing demand in Europe, especially the UK and Germany.
Employers can chose to veto certain categories of sites ranging from finance and investment sites to dating agencies and estate agents.
And access to each different category of website can be made available on a certain day for a minimum or maximum amount of time.
The answer is to install an Internet server appliance that provides a high level of access control.
The Web@Work Survey 2001 reveals that British employers are five times more likely to take disciplinary action than Italian employers - and two-and-a-half times more likely to take action than their French or German counterparts.
Researchers found that accessing pornography at work was not the only pastime of workers who waste three hours a week accessing the Net for their own pleasure
Booking a holiday (52 per cent), pursuing educational interests (42 per cent), researching a hobby (41 per cent), shopping(28 per cent) - the list goes on - also ranked highly.
it warned that a small company that provides open Internet access to its employees could expect to lose up to £50,000 a year in lost productivity. Bigger companies, it claimed, could lose tens of millions of pounds in time misspent.
And it also claimed that workers in the UK who accessed the Big Brother Web site last summer were costing UK Plc £1.4 million a week in lost productivity alone.
5 Ways to Keep Employees in Line While They're Online
1. Establish a written Internet Policy that prohibits employees from using company computer assets to visit inappropriate sites, or upload or download objectionable material from the Internet.
2. Clearly communicate the fact that the organization's computer resources are not to be wasted, but are to be used strictly for approved, business purposes.
3. Enforce cyberlanguage and content guidelines designed to keep Net copy clean and clear.
4. Don't leave compliance to chance. Back up your Internet Policy with monitoring and filtering software.
5. Don't expect your employees to train themselves. Reinforce your Internet policy with on-going employee education.
Excerpted from The ePolicy Handbook ©2001,
