Using the Internet at work
Discussion
I am an employment lawyer. I work for a large organisation. We have various policies in place for employees to do with use of Internet at work and emails using the work email address.
I deal with lots of matters in my practice however of late I've noticed a trend for management to be disciplining people for excessive Internet use or use of the work email for stuff like groupon or signing up for daily emails
A few matters I've dealt with involve people being given informal advice or informal warning quite a few years ago, and then , years later, they are pulled up in their Internet use and the end result is that they are sacked.
Now, our policy is pretty loose, I.e you are allowed to use the Internet at work for personal matters as long as the use is reasonable, and use should be contained to either use age before work or during work breaks. No of course, I would imagine that pretty much everyone who works where I do breaches this policy. But what is too much? What if you can still do your job/ had good appraisals / but by chance they check your internet records?
Quite frankly I've seen a few Internet use records and in the cold light of day , on a spreadsheet they look bad. But I would imagine a few pistonheaders usage is similar.
If you are an employee, what is your works policy, and have you ever fallen foul of it?
I deal with lots of matters in my practice however of late I've noticed a trend for management to be disciplining people for excessive Internet use or use of the work email for stuff like groupon or signing up for daily emails
A few matters I've dealt with involve people being given informal advice or informal warning quite a few years ago, and then , years later, they are pulled up in their Internet use and the end result is that they are sacked.
Now, our policy is pretty loose, I.e you are allowed to use the Internet at work for personal matters as long as the use is reasonable, and use should be contained to either use age before work or during work breaks. No of course, I would imagine that pretty much everyone who works where I do breaches this policy. But what is too much? What if you can still do your job/ had good appraisals / but by chance they check your internet records?
Quite frankly I've seen a few Internet use records and in the cold light of day , on a spreadsheet they look bad. But I would imagine a few pistonheaders usage is similar.
If you are an employee, what is your works policy, and have you ever fallen foul of it?
I get a warning message if I try to access something IT aren't happy with. The irony is that often it's something that's work related, too. I can never be bothered putting forward a case against it, as I have a company supplied iPad that isn't connected to the company network, so can use that pretty much how I like. If I'm in my home office, I have a little chromebook on my desk alongside the company machine anyway.
To be honest, aside from using Facebook on the work laptop (we have a closed company group on there), I ensure I don't use my company kit for personal stuff. Including signing up to emails that aren't beneficial to work (I do get emails from hotel booking sites and similar stuff that I use during my working week).
To be honest, aside from using Facebook on the work laptop (we have a closed company group on there), I ensure I don't use my company kit for personal stuff. Including signing up to emails that aren't beneficial to work (I do get emails from hotel booking sites and similar stuff that I use during my working week).
The problem is you need to be consistent.
Personally I think as long as they are not sitting on it for hours a quick glance at the news isn't a problem, we set different levels of access. The plebs get basic internet, more important people get basic plus social media and then the really trustworthy get full access.
Personally I think as long as they are not sitting on it for hours a quick glance at the news isn't a problem, we set different levels of access. The plebs get basic internet, more important people get basic plus social media and then the really trustworthy get full access.
In my opinion the people who the firm needs/values will be left alone.
Those who do the minimum required or are a PITA to manage - boss will look for any excuse to make their life difficult / manage them out. Internet usage is an easy way to pull them up. An even sneakier way is to trawl through their emails to find something offensive.
Those who do the minimum required or are a PITA to manage - boss will look for any excuse to make their life difficult / manage them out. Internet usage is an easy way to pull them up. An even sneakier way is to trawl through their emails to find something offensive.
mikees said:
I think the best rule is, never use work equipment for any non work stuff. Ever.
With 4g phones why would you need to?
Absolutely this.With 4g phones why would you need to?
When I was employed, as opposed to working for myself, I did use the Internet quite a bit over the years in work time, more than I should have done. But I only ever used my iPhone or personal iPad for it.
I cannot understand anyone would use their work computer, email or phone for any personal use whatsoever. It's just asking for trouble.
I also agree with the earlier comment that anyone who is an asset to the company will be left alone despite their internet usage, and anyone who is difficult to manage, lazy, or just doesn't 'fit in' will be got rid of if possible using Internet use as a reason.
Personally, I think all companies should just say 'no personal use whatsoever' whilst using work computers. That keeps it simple for everyone.
NinjaPower said:
Personally, I think all companies should just say 'no personal use whatsoever' whilst using work computers. That keeps it simple for everyone.
That's difficult to do, though.We (as a business) are publicly active on Twitter and one of the photo sharing sites (can't remember which one). We have a public Facebook presence, and a closed group for employees to share photos, activities etc.
How do you separate looking at legitimate work stuff from personal stuff?
If I log onto Facebook to look at the closed group, but also have a quick check of my own Facebook feed, am I now breaking the rules?
I work in the retail fuels business, so in many ways things on PH are of interest to me professionally - how do you separate browsing for professional interests from me just looking around at stuff that personally interests me?
It's getting increasingly hard to separate work and personal internet use as the boundaries are blurring.
Trabi601 said:
NinjaPower said:
Personally, I think all companies should just say 'no personal use whatsoever' whilst using work computers. That keeps it simple for everyone.
That's difficult to do, though.We (as a business) are publicly active on Twitter and one of the photo sharing sites (can't remember which one). We have a public Facebook presence, and a closed group for employees to share photos, activities etc.
How do you separate looking at legitimate work stuff from personal stuff?
If I log onto Facebook to look at the closed group, but also have a quick check of my own Facebook feed, am I now breaking the rules?
I work in the retail fuels business, so in many ways things on PH are of interest to me professionally - how do you separate browsing for professional interests from me just looking around at stuff that personally interests me?
It's getting increasingly hard to separate work and personal internet use as the boundaries are blurring.
All the company employees could communicate via Yammer. I don't know if you've used it before, but Yammer is basically Facebook for business employees and functions in very much the same way. Everyone was encouraged to use it and it prevented the scenario you mention of people spending hours on Facebook and claiming it was because they were frequenting the closed group for employees. It allowed chat, discussion, photo sharing, polls and everything else you could want.
NinjaPower said:
The last big company I worked for had a very public profile on Facebook, Twitter etc, but those accounts were managed by a handful of staff who were trained in the art of such things for obvious reasons. The rest of the employees had no reason to go there.
All the company employees could communicate via Yammer. I don't know if you've used it before, but Yammer is basically Facebook for business employees and functions in very much the same way. Everyone was encouraged to use it and it prevented the scenario you mention of people spending hours on Facebook and claiming it was because they were frequenting the closed group for employees. It allowed chat, discussion, photo sharing, polls and everything else you could want.
Why wouldn't I have a need to go on Facebook for professional reasons? - I could be using it to look at general customer feedback trends, search for any specific feedback on my customers etc.All the company employees could communicate via Yammer. I don't know if you've used it before, but Yammer is basically Facebook for business employees and functions in very much the same way. Everyone was encouraged to use it and it prevented the scenario you mention of people spending hours on Facebook and claiming it was because they were frequenting the closed group for employees. It allowed chat, discussion, photo sharing, polls and everything else you could want.
We have Yammer. It's counter-intuitive to use and is a pain to set up for external users (ie. the 'customers' who own sites trading under our brand).
Maybe our industry is slightly difficult in having B2B relationships which then feed into B2C sales. If that makes sense?
Countdown said:
In my opinion the people who the firm needs/values will be left alone.
Those who do the minimum required or are a PITA to manage - boss will look for any excuse to make their life difficult / manage them out. Internet usage is an easy way to pull them up. An even sneakier way is to trawl through their emails to find something offensive.
I have seen this in practice. Unsuitable material downloaded by senior staff ignored. Too much web browsing by awkward worker bee resulting in formal disciplinary action.Those who do the minimum required or are a PITA to manage - boss will look for any excuse to make their life difficult / manage them out. Internet usage is an easy way to pull them up. An even sneakier way is to trawl through their emails to find something offensive.
The comments above make me glad I don't work for a large company. They remind me of a part time job I had years ago where I had to clock in and out.
I'll answer the occasional work email from home in the evening on my own phone, and in return I occasionally use work equipment for private purposes.
I'll answer the occasional work email from home in the evening on my own phone, and in return I occasionally use work equipment for private purposes.
Trabi601 said:
Why wouldn't I have a need to go on Facebook for professional reasons? - I could be using it to look at general customer feedback trends, search for any specific feedback on my customers etc.
This may be true for you but I'd bet 90% of staff that work with internet access do not need to use FB to do their job properly.BTW, good effort in managing almost 1500 posts on PH in only 4 months
, I hope they were all done on your own time 
.Steve H said:
This may be true for you but I'd bet 90% of staff that work with internet access do not need to use FB to do their job properly.
BTW, good effort in managing almost 1500 posts on PH in only 4 months, I hope they were all done on your own time .
Symptom of too much time living in a David Brent / Alan Partridge bubble... "life on the road..."BTW, good effort in managing almost 1500 posts on PH in only 4 months
, I hope they were all done on your own time .Sheets Tabuer said:
Surely a law firm would never do this, if one employee was dismissed for internet use yet it is ignored for others then is it not constructive dismissal?
Sometimes law firms are just as bad at following rules as anybody else - a colleague of mine sued Pannone for unfair dismissal and won. Given the size of their Employment Law team I would have assumed that Pannone would have been unbeatable, but there you go.Consistency can be difficult for IT because quite often you discover things rather than actively look for them.
I work in IT and my concern is security risks, I literally couldn't give a f
k if you're sat on eBay or Amazon all day long and I don't really care if you're on Youtube or iPlayer all day.
Throw a bunch of data up or down on Dropbox and I'll be curious what's going on, same if you're downloading executables or DLLs or getting blocked from a bunch of adult or malware sites, or using some high risk web applications and that kind of thing, but otherwise it's usually not an IT issue.
Of course I'm lucky enough to work somewhere that is pretty sensible about that kind of thing. If you have a strict internet policy because of the kind of work you do fair enough, but if you do it to try and make sure staff work I'm far from convinced it will work because if people want to waste time there are plenty of other ways to do so.
I work in IT and my concern is security risks, I literally couldn't give a f
k if you're sat on eBay or Amazon all day long and I don't really care if you're on Youtube or iPlayer all day.Throw a bunch of data up or down on Dropbox and I'll be curious what's going on, same if you're downloading executables or DLLs or getting blocked from a bunch of adult or malware sites, or using some high risk web applications and that kind of thing, but otherwise it's usually not an IT issue.
Of course I'm lucky enough to work somewhere that is pretty sensible about that kind of thing. If you have a strict internet policy because of the kind of work you do fair enough, but if you do it to try and make sure staff work I'm far from convinced it will work because if people want to waste time there are plenty of other ways to do so.
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