Case Study Chapter 8 Monitoring Employees on Networks: Unethical or Good Business?

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Case Study Chapter 8 Monitoring Employees on
Networks Unethical or Good Business?

• By Michele Schatz
• March 7, 2005

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Case Summary

• The Internet and email are important tools
• Employees abuse the Internet and e-mail during
  work hours
• Companies must have written policies that are
  easy to understand and follow
• Employers using a variety of monitoring software
• Exhibit of Computer Usage Policy

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Business is business!

• Competition is stronger than ever before
• Internet and e-mail use is steadily growing
• Internet and e-mail help businesses expand their
  territory, customer base and sales

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What are employees doing during business hours?

• Surfing the Internet for personal reasons
• and
• Sending personal e-mails to their
  friends and family

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What sites are they surfing?

• Sports sites
• Retail outlets
• Investment sites
• Adult and child pornography sites

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Is It Really A Problem?

• At least 25 of employees on-line time is spent
  on nonwork-related surfing

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Does Internet Abuse Cause Problems?

• Employee productivity is lost
• Employee morale is low
• Employees who witness their co-workers surfing
  the web
• First, complain silently to themselves
• Second, complain to other co-workers
• Third, complain to supervisor
• Sexual harassment lawsuits

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Does E-mail Abuse Cause Problems?

• Some e-mails are racist, sexually implicit, or
  contain other potentially offensive material
• Sexual harassment lawsuits have been filed and
  settled
• Trade secrets can be lost or stolen
• Personal e-mails can have damaging viruses
• Personal e-mails can clog the network

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Eight Ways Computer Abuse Can Hurt a Company!

• Loss of time and salary
• Example 1,100 employees
• average salary is 15 per hour
• all employees waste one hour per day
• costs 16,500 per day
• costs 82,500 per week
• costs 4,290,000 per year

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Cont. Eight Ways Computer Abuse can hurt!

• 2. Loss of productivity
• 3. Loss of potential revenue
• 4. Slow working network bandwidth
• 5. Having to update bandwidth
• 6. Overcharging clients
• 7. Lawsuits
• 8. Bad publicity

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What Can Employers Do?

• Monitor e-mail and personal use of Internet
• Policy regarding Internet usage to protect
  against employee lawsuits.
• Explicit ground rules in easily understood
  language
• Includes who has what rights and under what
  circumstances
• Vague terminology cannot be applied fairly
• Allow specific times for personal e-mail and
  Internet access
• Implement a zero tolerance policy and modified
  usage policy

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Monitoring Software

• SurfWatch www.surfcontrol.com
• MailSweeper www.mailsweeper.com
• CommandView Internet Manager www.zixcorp.com

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Good Business Practice

• An automatic message
• Warns all employees of the written policies
• Reminds employees about monitoring software
• Significant decrease of abuse has occurred

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Conclusion

• Internet and e-mail are two very important tools
• Need written policies
• Monitoring software

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Exhibit A Internet Usage Policy

• Internet Usage Policy
• Use of the Internet will be allowed regarding the
  following Internet usage
• Use of the Internet for personal business, such
  as personal e-mail or Internet surfing is
  permitted ONLY during the following periods
  before stated company business hours, after
  stated company business hours, or an employees
  lunch hour.
• Information Services Department is allowed to
  monitor employees to provide weekly reports
  detailing Internet and e-mail usage during normal
  business hours per employee.
• Zero tolerance policy will be strictly enforced
  regarding the following Internet/Email usage
• Use of the Internet/E-mail to discuss or
  distribute information related to the companys
  trade secrets, policies or practices. Monitoring
  software will be employed to scan outgoing e-mail
  for company sensitive terminology and related
  subject matter
• Use of the Internet causing disruption to the
  facilitys services including reduction of
  bandwidth available for company business.
• Transmission of harassing, discriminatory or
  otherwise objectionable e-mail or files (as
  determined by the recipient) is strictly
  prohibited.
• The Internet must not be used to access, create,
  transmit, print or download material that is
  derogatory, insulting, obscene, or offensive,
  such as slurs, epithets, or anything that may be
  construed as harassment or disparagement based on
  race, color or religious. Monitoring software
  will be employed to block the availability of
  these types of sites