Slacker employees present VAR opportunity
I never surfed the Web while working at my desk in the office.
That's a bold claim, and I'm able to make it only because I haven't worked in an office since the Web was invented. If I had that sort of job today, I would probably be the biggest goof-off of them all.
One suggestion, and it sounds like a good one, is to take advantage of would-be office bums like me and turn it into an opportunity, to help firms prevent misuse of company networks during business hours. According to research in the UK, more than three-fourths of employees surveyed carry out personal tasks at work, and don't feel guilty about it. Half of those surveyed make personal phone calls, and 61 percent send non-work-related emails. Seventy-nine percent spend up to half an hour a day surfing the Web for personal reasons.
And if that's not enough, a significant percentage use personal web-based email accounts. Making a few personal phone calls is one thing: It's not going to bring viruses into the company network. But, as everyone knows (with the possible exception of Sarah Palin), using personal web-based email accounts or instant messaging at work can circumvent many of the security protocols that have been put in place. Policies in response to these practices may vary, but the security problems that they could bring will not go away--and this will be a growth area for consultants for years to come.
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Either way you look at it Microsoft Data Center management did not follow standards or best practices in this failure. In which case it makes me wonder more about the outsourcing of corporate data much less personal data.
- mburton325
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Managers need to well... manage!
Dan, It's not just a monitoring and access-control issue. The reality is most managers that have employees who abuse company resources like this are asleep at the wheel. If employees have no other mesasures of accountability, productivity, and results other than having their butts physically attached to the base of their office chairs, who's to blame?!?The Office tv sitcom actually tackled this issue a few weeks ago, as a result of Michael Scott's ethics "workshop". Next thing you knew, Jim was following Dwight around with a stopwatch. And Dwight never even left his desk for the men's room.
I've always half-jokingly thought that the World should try operating as "consultants" for a week, where they have to account for billable (most productive) vs. non-billable hours (less/lease productive).