Restrictions on Internet Is it worth of spending?
In most of the companies where your work is on computers and quite often you require Google to search out stuff, you will have internet access. But if the first thing comes to your mind with the word internet is e-mail than you are getting me wrong, do people really have full internet access at work? In majority case no. There are very few companies where people are given complete liberty of using the internet. In this article I will discuss about how it is beneficial for a company to provide full internet access at work.
Generally the use of internet at work is for many different purposes. Most popular are Orkut, Face book, Gtalk, Yahoo messenger, checking Yahoo/Google emails, downloading stuff (for some geeks) and casual searching for doubts/knowledge. I don’t think there is anything apart which has more than 10% weight. In 95 out of 100 companies you will get messages from expensive web filters like “Access Denied as per company IT policy”, “You are not authorized to use this resource” or “Website you are trying to access is blocked, kindly contact your IT support department” Whenever I see something restricted, as usual I start finding a loophole out of it and I do not rest until I break that barrier. The point here is people generally use internet for the above most common tp means. They avoid any other usages of internet during office hours unless they are blessed with seclusion. So it is not surprising that anyone who is a boss will call these as distraction of time, money and resources. They will surely say – “This is not a Cyber café” in all their arguments. But my line is have they given full internet access for the six months and checked the productivity? Or they blindly believe about the outcome that such things will occur?
The reason is crystal clear. It has something to do with human tendency. In every day no matter what work you do and independent of your work load, you will surely feel a little boredom like “Pak gaya yaar!” or “I need a break Dude!” I have seen that people one or the other way take some time to relax after every chunk of work. Some examples may be reading news papers, big toilet breaks, snack breaks, friends call, office chit-chats, smoke break etc. the list is endless. So what I argue is what is wrong with a refreshing Google chat with a friend or checking some fun emails. On an average this takes less time than a typical break and there is nothing wrong in it. Is it?
The other major thing impacting human nature is long term use. Consider that everyday you see an ad of a new Cadbury chocolate “Bourneville”. You will be eager to eat that chocolate at least once. But ask yourself, will you be equally enthusiastic for having it the next time once you have already had it once. You will be naturally not. The same thing goes for the internet. You will chat with your entire closest pal’s once, twice a month but will you be doing that everyday? So the interest reduces with time. And if the person has got sufficient work, he himself will choose to work rather than to waste his time in internet activities. After all who wants to sit till late in the evenings?
So if the employees are given full internet access at their workplaces will ultimately benefit the company over the long term rather than being suffered by reduced productivity. Also the cost of expensive web filters and monitoring staff will be almost zero. It will also create trust between workers and senior management in the company. But as usual there is a catch (I learnt this dialogue in engineering from one of my professors and since have been using every time I get a chance) I also advise bosses to be little more cautious for the person with no work. All the idea’s and human tendencies fail when a person is sitting idle. They will find out hundreds of other ways for doing tp. So according to me no internet should be given to a person sitting idle. It is extra cost. Instead give it video tutorials a try.
PS: This article is not my confessions. Although I have been fortunate enough to break security restrictions in the company I work, I will not advise anyone going for it. Do it at your own risk. Always remember you will be straight away given termination if you are caught doing any illegal activities. I wish you very good luck!
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