EEs' personal use of computers
sk8n
32 Posts
Sorry for the long post that follows:
We have a broad policy for personal use of Internet, e-mail, personal computer use, as well as addressing personal phone calls and use of company resources. I have had several staff meetings that have addressed these policies and expectations. Most recently it was a result of one ee working on her resume and cover letters during the day. After that, all 11 ees have "clammed up," avoid personal conversations around me, appear to be diligently working as I walk around. All well and good but personal cell phones are probably on vibrate now (since I mentioned that I knew when each of them received a personal call on their cell phone). We are a small office, but spread out. The only way I know what is going on is to walk around but the staff is always busily at "work" and they act as if I am 'spying' on them. Trust is eroded since they all are aware of the situation in December with the one looking for another position and the realization that I monitored her computer.
So I had reason to question the errant ee's activities again -- after almost 3 months of exemplary behavior. While she was on vacation last week I once again monitored her PC and found - nothing - All history, recent files, e-mails, recycle bin etc. were empty from the file history. There is a "histroykill" icon that eveidently deletes all the daily activity. Unfortunately for her, however, the cache showed that her most recently accessed documents were, among 5 others, her resume and cover letter from a floppy. In an effort to be consistent and fair to her -- which all staff have accused me of NOT being, I made a sweep of all the computers in the office. I did not expect to find history erased on 8 of the 11 computers. All have some sort of program now loaded on each one to allow the user to erase any indication of what they were working on, or what Internet surfing they did that day. The 3 with history (they hadn't deleted in three days)however, were an even bigger surprise: one recently worked on a resume and letter during the day and visited various job search sites on the Internet; one visited porn sites regularly during the day, one was 100% work related.
Now I need to address this. Do I "clean house" -- a very impractical course -- reprimand my IT person (I believe she must have instructed everyone on how to avoid spying eyes) and everyone else? Talk to everyone at one time, in addition to individually? Ignore the fact that they erase history and traces of their work/personal business? Forget it and move on?
We have a broad policy for personal use of Internet, e-mail, personal computer use, as well as addressing personal phone calls and use of company resources. I have had several staff meetings that have addressed these policies and expectations. Most recently it was a result of one ee working on her resume and cover letters during the day. After that, all 11 ees have "clammed up," avoid personal conversations around me, appear to be diligently working as I walk around. All well and good but personal cell phones are probably on vibrate now (since I mentioned that I knew when each of them received a personal call on their cell phone). We are a small office, but spread out. The only way I know what is going on is to walk around but the staff is always busily at "work" and they act as if I am 'spying' on them. Trust is eroded since they all are aware of the situation in December with the one looking for another position and the realization that I monitored her computer.
So I had reason to question the errant ee's activities again -- after almost 3 months of exemplary behavior. While she was on vacation last week I once again monitored her PC and found - nothing - All history, recent files, e-mails, recycle bin etc. were empty from the file history. There is a "histroykill" icon that eveidently deletes all the daily activity. Unfortunately for her, however, the cache showed that her most recently accessed documents were, among 5 others, her resume and cover letter from a floppy. In an effort to be consistent and fair to her -- which all staff have accused me of NOT being, I made a sweep of all the computers in the office. I did not expect to find history erased on 8 of the 11 computers. All have some sort of program now loaded on each one to allow the user to erase any indication of what they were working on, or what Internet surfing they did that day. The 3 with history (they hadn't deleted in three days)however, were an even bigger surprise: one recently worked on a resume and letter during the day and visited various job search sites on the Internet; one visited porn sites regularly during the day, one was 100% work related.
Now I need to address this. Do I "clean house" -- a very impractical course -- reprimand my IT person (I believe she must have instructed everyone on how to avoid spying eyes) and everyone else? Talk to everyone at one time, in addition to individually? Ignore the fact that they erase history and traces of their work/personal business? Forget it and move on?
Comments
Our company recently purchased some "blocking" software that blocks sites dealing with "entertainment", "shopping" "jobs" and other similar categories. When you access one of these a screen comes up indicating that this is not an "authorized" site, but if you need it for work reasons, you can click below and have access. This click generates a report to our IT people and no doubt they check to see if it was work related.
You have every right to dictate how much personal time is spent using the work provided internet. You also have the right to dictate what kind of softeare is installed on the PC's and if your IT person is authorizing software that undermines your ee's ability to stay on task and do what you're paying them to do. I can't think of a good reason you should be paying them to look for other work.
The real issue is that all the staff now have this 'history erase' program, or are mannually doing it every night because they were told there is no expectation of privacy. So what are they hiding if they have to erase daily log files? Is discipline warranted for this behavior?
I can get a blocker -- a great idea -- but my IT person will have to install and implement it.
We put a disclaimer on every computer during log in stating in summary we have the capability to monitor their computers at any time and that they should not have any expectation of privacy. The computers and all contents are company property.
But we have also allowed them to be able to use the computers for personal use ONLY during lunch and breaks at these times it is acceptable unless they use them to visit inappropriate sites on the internet such as porn.
But the fact is that if they are getting their job done and it is acceptable. What is the problem? If they have too much time on their hands give them additional work to occupy them during their work hours.
Just a thought.
Lisa
We do allow personal usage for those with access, but it is restricted to non-work hours. But in the end, we rely on performance as the real measurement tool as to whether too much time is spent on personal business. For exempt staff, that is really the only way we can do it, and very few non-exempts even have this access.
That said, we publish reports to the supervisor and managers about the percentage of time the net is used for obviously personal website versus business sites. The personal usage was staggering in the beginning, but some personal counseling and a write-up or two seems to have solved most of the issues.
In our shop, the IT department is responsible for the misuse reporting of technology - HR can be involved if a write-up occurs, but usually not if the first instance. Compliance with company policies is the duty of all, but enforcement starts with the supervisiors of staff. Perhaps you can work with training of supervisor and not be so personally involved. Hold the supervisors feet to the fire and make them responsbile for their staff.
A word about repremanding your IT person--if you Goggle on "delete file history" you will come up with many programs that are readily available for $29.99 that will clean up your computer. Many also have a "boss button" that will hide your browser windows if someone comes over to your computer. It may not have been your IT person who loaded this software on the computers. Anyone in your office could have purchased it and shared it with fellow employees.
Cammy
The bottom line is that you have the ability to limit the amount of business time dealing with personal matters, such as job hunting...
And you can certainly prevent employees from downloading unauthorized items. The business reason for that is corruption of your systems... you have no way of knowing the quality of the download or that it is virus free....
I hope that you have written policies in place and deal with this....because it sounds like this situation will only escalate to encompass other areas beyond the PC.
Okay, here's what I would do:
Don't reprimand the IT person - ask her if she knows anything about it first - assume nothing until you have asked. If she did - are you her boss? If you are, what policy did she break? If you're her boss & she broke a policy on downloads, then write her up. Otherwise, refer her to her boss & let that person know what happened & be done with it. One final thing - tell the IT person that this software or others like it should be eliminated from the company's computers. If you don't have a policy on it, create one - all this software does is allow people to continue to mess around & staying non-productive.
I wouldn't clean house, per se. I would get rid of the ee that keeps looking for work. I'm assuming you wrote her up the last time - so this must be a second infraction leading to termination right? If you didn't write her up - term her anyway - using the phrase - "it's just not the right fit anymore." Nothing more or less. To me (& I only say this given your account of what's transpiring in your office), I think she sounds like a bad apple & is poisoning the rest of the group.
To all of the other offenders, write 'em up. To the person checking out porn - do you have a zero tolerance policy on this type of junk in the workplace, either internet or sexual harassment? We do, so I would term. immediately. If you don't, then either term. or write up according to your policies.
I would look at your policies & see if you can find a compromise - can your company allow people on their breaks or at lunch use their computers for personal use - as a compromise? Find out - go to bat for the ee's on this and see if they can. The trust that's eroded here is theirs in you. Try to rebuild it.
Finally, stop talking about it so much (x:-)). Let new folks know what the policy is & then only do annual reminders (include other policies as well). By constantly reminding folks, it tends to feel (and don't take this personally) like a power play: "(Since I mentioned that I knew when each of them received a personal call on their cell phone.)" The only time you should have to deal with this at all is when you do your computer sweeps (all or nothing, unless you have specific suspicions about specific issues with one employee) & then write up or term. those that go against policy. The structure sounds good, but it's the consquences with action that matter.
Term porn surfer, term warned job hunter and hopefully send a message to the rest of the group that these activities will not be tolerated... then work on mending the fences with the others you have some serious morale issue that need addressing ASAP.
just my .02
Deal with it from a job standpoint. If they are not meeting their work expectations, deal with it. Sounds like you need to look at how many people you really need and how well utilized they are.
It's completely impractical to monitor every little move that people do on their computers. Plus, if employees know you monitor their machines, they will never trust you...whether that's fair or not, its true.
Gotta go clean my hardrive...I was just on a very naughty HR dominatrix site.
I called a staff meeting to deal with questions and discussed our new policy for computer, Internet and telephone personal use, effective immediately, gave them all a copy to read and sign (the one paragraph former policy is now three pages long). I announced that an independent outside audit of our computer system would be done to recover all deleted files and history, and any further deletion of history or recent files would be against policy (and software downloading.) My IT person tightened up security and access rights. [Im' meeting with the porn viewer this morning.]
It was a good meeting. Afterwards, a staffer told be that it was a good thing and that termed ee was actually going to an interview, not to help her father. x:o
Oh and of course I recognize that each company's culture comes into this scenario. The culture at my current employer is that we don't forbid personal use (beyond the porn kind of surfing; always instead focus on performance. But then we are a somewhat small company with no production and majority are exempt employees so that may be the difference.