In this post we explore the use of Internet filtering to improve employee productivity, including statistics from recent surveys that show how many companies are now choosing to control employee Internet access more carefully.
Employee Productivity Falls on Black Friday and Cyber Monday
The staffing firm Robert Half Technology recently conducted a survey on 2,500 chief information officers (CIOs) across 25 metropolitan areas in the United States and more than 1,000 U.S. officer workers over 18 years of age to determine how Black Friday and Cyber Monday affect employee productivity.
The results of the survey provide an indication on what goes on throughout the year, but Black Friday and Cyber Monday were studied as they are the two busiest days for online shopping. The survey results show that three quarters of employees spent at least some of Cyber Monday shopping online on a work device. Four out of 10 workers said they spent more than an hour looking for bargains online on Cyber Monday while they were at work. 23% said they were expecting to spend even longer than that this year.
46% of workers said they would be online shopping on their work computers during their lunch hour and breaks, but 29% said they would be shopping throughout the day and would be keeping browser tabs open. 20% of workers said they would do online shopping at work in the morning.
While policies on accessing pornography may have been made crystal clear, online shopping is something of a gray area. 31% of employees were not aware of their company’s stance on online shopping on work devices. 43% said their employers permit it and 26% said it is not permitted.
The survey of CIOs shows 49% of companies allow online shopping within reason but that they monitor employee Internet use. 22% said they allow totally unrestricted Internet access while 29% have implemented solutions to block access to online shopping sites.
In June 2018, Spiceworks published the results of a survey that showed 58% of organizations actively monitor employee Internet activity and 89% of organizations use Internet filters to block at least one category of Internet content.
Most surveyed companies use Internet filtering to improve employee productivity. While only 13% block online shopping sites, many companies block other productivity-draining sites such as social media, gaming, gambling and dating sites.
Internet filtering to improve employee productivity is important, but the majority of companies are flexible when it comes to employee Internet use for personal shopping, provided employees keep it to a reasonable level.
Monitoring Employee Internet Access to Prevent Abuse
Many businesses use Internet filtering to improve employee productivity and enforce acceptable usage policies. Some control Internet access with an iron fist, others are much more permissive.
Regardless of the controls that are put in place, Internet filters also allow employers to keep close tabs on their employees’ Internet activity. An internet filter is a useful tool for monitoring employees, not just enforcing company policies.
Internet filters allow employers to easily check employee Internet use while maintaining a relatively permissive controls. This allows them to take action when individuals are abusing Internet access. Monitoring is easy as reports can be generated on user, group, or organization-wide activity while providing information on browsing activity in real time. Reports can also be automatically generated and sent to department heads or IT security teams.
Different controls can be applied to different user groups and time-based controls can be set, for instance, only permitting online shopping during lunch hours or other scheduled breaks. Such controls would be useful for stopping the 20% of workers that do their online shopping at work in the morning which, in many businesses, is the most important part of the day when productivity needs to be high.
Since controls can be applied for different types of Internet content, security can be maintained by blocking access to high risk sites and illegal or totally unacceptable content all of the time, while restrictions on other categories of content can be eased during relatively quiet periods.
In short, Internet filters should not be viewed just as a way of restricting employee Internet access, but as a tool for the management of Internet use to improve security and enjoy productivity gains while giving employees some flexibility.
How TitanHQ Can Help
Not all Internet filters offer businesses the highly granular controls that are necessary to carefully control Internet content. Many lack flexibility and have difficult to use interfaces.
Applying and managing Internet filters should be an easy process, which is why TitanHQ developed the WebTitan suite of products. WebTitan Gateway, WebTitan Cloud, and WebTitan Cloud for WiFi have been developed to make Internet filtering a simple process, while giving businesses the ability to precisely control employee Internet access to achieve productivity gains and improve security.
What Makes WebTitan the Ideal Choice for Businesses
Listed below are some of the key features of WebTitan that are often found lacking in other business Internet filtering solutions.
- No hardware purchases necessary
- No software downloads required
- Quick and easy set up and application of Internet policies
- Highly granular controls allow flexible policies to be applied
- Links with Active Directory and LDAP allowing easy application of organization, department, group, or user-level Internet controls
- Easily block content through 53 pre-defined categories and 10 customizable categories
- Keyword-based filtering controls
- Time-based filtering
- SSL inspection
- Dual anti-virus engines provide leading AV protection
- Excellent protection from phishing websites
- An intuitive web-based user interface places all information and controls at your fingertips
- Highly scalable
- Protect wired and wireless networks, including protection/content controls for off-site workers
- Provides full visibility of network usage
- Full reporting suite, including group and user activity, real time browsing activity, report scheduling, and real-time alerts
If you want to use Internet filtering to improve employee productivity, enforce acceptable usage policies, and improve security by blocking web-based threats, WebTitan is the ideal solution.
For more information on WebTitan and advice on the best option to suit the needs of your business, contact the TitanHQ team today. Our experts will be happy to book a product demonstration and help you take advantage of a free trial of the full product to see the solution in action and discover the difference it makes.