Big Brother Is Watching

Too few employees seem to understand that your company owns and has access to any communication you make from the company premises with the outside world. Recently, several employees gave me a heads up that another employee was spending most of her day surfing online job hunting, banking, and playing games. I asked the Network Administrator to monitor her Internet use. Ultimately, the employee received a disciplinary action as a result of her expenditure of work time on non-work suring.

I believe that the company's access to her computer records never entered her mind. A recent study shows that up to a third of all large employers in the United States and the United Kingdom are monitoring employee email. That's not a big surprise given my experiences in a small company in which I have even had to fire an employee recently for watching pornographic movies at work.You need an effective email and Internet policy.