Local council sacks web addicts

Added by The Editor, about 1 year ago.

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Three workers at Neath Port Talbot Council in Wales have lost their jobs because of excessive use of the Internet while at work, the BBC reported last week.

One was sacked for spending two hours per day on auction site eBay. Two other workers, also described as suffering from web addiction, resigned from their jobs with the council.

The council's head of personnel Graham Jones said that it was forced to intervene due to the significant amount of time officers were spending on the Internet, and this highlighted an unacceptable level of usage of shopping, entertainment and BBC/Sky-related websites.

We have a policy of allowing employees to use the internet in their own time, he told reporters. But we clearly do not want them to use it in council time, [as] they are employed to do a job at work and not to shop online.

Mark Fisher, a local spokesperson for public sector trade union Unison, said that the council was in part to blame, for allowing its employees the freedom to surf the web. Employers should install firewall software to protect their staff from the temptation of the World Wide Web, he said.

Our take: A blanket ban on Internet use at work is clearly NOT the answer. There are plenty of ways that employees might use the Internet to improve their job performance to their employer's advantage. What's more, that will increasingly be the case, as Logicalis' recent research into the attitudes and habits of the Realtime Generation of 13 to 17-year olds, illustrates. A better approach might be a carefully thought-out Acceptable Usage Policy (AUP) that workers willingly sign up to as part of their contract with their employer.

Comments

There are currently 3 comments about this blog.

M T, about 1 year ago

is the answer to this, for employers to monitor usage using tools such as surfcontrol; to let employees know they are being watched and that excess use (we know which sites you are looking at!) will be brought to you and discused in terms of what is unacceptable. Is'nt it the same analogy as using a mobile phone and excess use on personal calls will be picked up and dealt with? I dont agree censorship is the way to go; use it, but use it wisely.

Gary Edwards, about 1 year ago

Asking employees to sign an AUP as part of their contract seems a little formalised and a dangerous precedent. Would that mean that an employee is discplined, for example, for using eBay one lunchtime to buy something that they'd been tracking for a week? Is it three strikes and out? This leads to all sorts of questions. At a previous employer, certain sites were blocked using software - one of them was the BBC website which was blocked because management noted regular use during working hours ... in fact we were often looking at the Technology section of the BBC website which we used for research purposes for the role. Of course, our managers jumped in feet first! But I'm not sure that dictating which websites employees can visit (and then asking them to sign an AUP as part of their contract) is the solution. Why not allow the employee to choose (without the need for an AUP) which websites they can visit, after some EDUCATION about acceptable use?

Amanda Smith, about 1 year ago

I was under the impression that many public sector workplaces already had software in place that prevented users from accessing certain websites during work hours (perhaps an hour at lunch, before 9am or after 5pm, for example). Is this the type of solution you think we'll see more of in the workplace or would you advocate a non-technology approach that relies solely on user discretion and adherence to the HR policy instead?