E-mail and Internet misuse

June 2 2003 - LONDON (PRWEB) - E-mail and Internet misuse by staff has become the biggest disciplinary problem for employers, a survey in Britain has found.

Research for the magazine Personnel Today and consultants KLegal revealed that employers have taken disciplinary action on more occasions in the past year against staff for misusing the Web than for dishonesty, violence and health and safety breaches combined.

The survey of 212 companies of 50 staff upwards found that there were 358 disciplinary cases for Internet and e-mail abuse compared to a combined total of 326 cases for the other three categories.

It reveals that the most common cyber crimes were excessive personal use of the Internet, sending pornographic e-mails and accessing pornographic Web sites.

The research showed the majority of employers are facing problems tackling the issue, despite 93 per cent of employers having policies on Web misuse.

A fifth of employers are now monitoring Internet and e-mail usage on a daily basis compared to 11 per cent 18 months ago.

"It is a very serious problem for employers and HR managers," Noel O'Reilly, Editor of Personnel Today, told CNN.

Many of the serious cases involved passing on of material, often pornographic, using company e-mails, O'Reilly said.

The survey found that nearly two thirds of e-mail and Internet related dismissals (38 out of 61) and half of the disciplinary cases (169 out of 358) were for accessing or distributing pornographic material.

O'Reilly said that e-mail and Web misuse was a serious concern for companies, first for the possible damage to the companies' reputations, and second, for the high costs involved in the time spent by staff not in productive work.

A recent survey revealed that 60 percent of e-mails received at work were personal.

"The problem has increased a lot since a year ago when we did our last survey just because of the increased technology and growing use of the Internet," O'Reilly said.

He said the reason it had become so much of a problem was first, a collision of cultures.

"What people think is acceptable at home often cannot be acceptable in the workplace.

"Secondly, more and more people are using the Internet and there are more and more opportunities for misuse."

He said that successful monitoring was the key and firms should ask themselves: Did they have the right software, did they have a monitoring policy and did they communicate the policy successfully to staff?

He said the balance had to be struck between fair use and potential damage to the company -- he did not agree, he said, with the one in 10 companies in the survey who banned private e-mails and Internet use completely.

A limited amount of personal use of e-mails and the Internet could be good for morale, he acknowledged.

On the other hand, he said, excessive use of the Internet by staff showed poor management and lack of motivation.

Stephen Levinson, employment law partner at KLegal, told Personnel Today that employers must do more than just draw up a policy on Internet misuse and urged companies to communicate their policies to staff on a regular basis.

"E-mail and Internet abuse at work remains a thorn in the side of businesses. While companies appear to be making more efforts to deal with it, it does not appear to be working particularly well," he said.

The survey said that more than 90 per cent of British companies inform staff that they monitor screens, with less than 10 per cent breaking the law in the UK by monitoring secretly. - CNN

Also on this subject:

E-mail and Internet misuse

Dealing with inappropriate computer use<

---

E-mail Etiquette: Do's, Don'ts, and Disaster Tales from People Magazine's Internet Manners Expert
by Samantha Miller
  Everyone uses e-mail these days, but not everyone knows how to. E-MAIL ETIQUETTE will change all of that.This guide to polite and productive electronic mail use at home or in the office will be a must-read for everyone.
  More information and prices from:
Amazon.com - US dollars
Amazon.ca - Canadian dollars
Amazon.co.uk - British pounds
Amazon.de - Euros
Amazon.fr - Euros

• More Employee Relations Articles