Employees Internet Access - More Issues than a Monthly Magazine

Most business people might think that giving an organization's employees Internet access makes loads of sense - they can do research, develop sales leads, order products and otherwise increase their productivity by being online. On the other hand, get the IS department, the company lawyer and certain managers together, and they'll start objecting. Call their objection the five P's of Internet access: productivity, performance, publicity, prosecution and pilfering (okay the fifth p's a stretch, but read on).

First, the people who manage people worry that if employees are given Internet access they're going to waste their time surfing when they should be working. Or, even if employees stay productive, they could damage the performance of the organization's network by downloading files and programs that crash their computers and/or the network and cause the IS department to beg -- or demand -- a bigger budget. Third, organizations may rightly be concerned that employees might download illegal and/or obscene material, actions that might require firings, and that could bring on bad publicity (our third "P"). Fourth, the organization itself could actually get sued (prosecuted) for sexual harassment. For example, for starters, suppose Bobby Jo displays photos of explicitly sexual acts on his monitor and Martha, in the cubicle next to his, objects (who could blame her?).

Now, about the fifth "P" -- pilfering. Internet access makes it easier for employees to collect company files and send them elsewhere. Alternatively, a hacker might break through an organization's firewall (via its Net access) and get at computer files and programs. For some organizations, the five P's are more than enough not to give employees Internet access. One major utility, I know of, was not even providing its public relations people with Internet access. The company P.R. people had to wait until they went home at night to see whether the latest media release had been accurately launched to the company Website!

That approach clearly is an overreaction, but giving employees unrestricted access may be a mistake as well. Here are some steps, then, that a company can take. First, organizations may want a written Internet Use Policy. That way, employees know what the organization has defined as appropriate use of the Internet on company time. Second, make sure the employees have a copy of the policy and have agreed, in writing, to abide by it. A third step would be to install software that limits employee access to Websites.

Medium-sized organizations often use a proxy server that determines what Websites can be accessed and which sites cannot be accessed. Of course new Websites, good and objectionable, appear all the time, so filtering Website addresses can be time consuming. Still, it's the only way to ensure that most (or nearly all) pornographic sites, for example, are not accessible from inside the organization.

Internet Use Policies should also cover the use of e-mail as well. Informing employees about email use policies can save an organization grief and cost in avoiding, for example, the downloading of viruses into the organization's computer network. Rules about e-mail use deserve discussion on their own, but it's worth noting that employees should be aware that an organization can assert that it owns all the e-mail employees write at work. Some company's keep archived files of all e-mails that anyone has ever written, a fact employees should remember before "dissing" a boss in a five paragraph e-mail to a co-worker.

Determining Internet access and e-mail usage rules requires more care than does defining company policy on using the phones, fax or copiers, but the effort is worthwhile. Company-owned copiers have been used for pornographic purposes, including unexpected views of various parts of the body. When it comes to the Internet, the rewards -- or penalties -- of doing the wrong thing, or nothing, are greater because the Net's a more powerful tool than the phone, fax and copier combined. Internet access should equal the big "P" -- productivity. If access is handled well, it can be a major productivity enhancer.

This article first appeared as a column written by Dave Tedlock, NetOutcomes' president, for Inside Tucson Business and/or the New Mexico Business Weekly.

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