Employees who use the internet for personal use at work are
costing UK companies £9.6 billion per year according to Websense.
The company, which sells employee monitoring software, claims in a
new report that 44% of workers with web access spend an average of
3 hours per week using it for non-work related purposes.
The £9.6 billion figure was calculated based on other statistics
from Websense - that 13.6 million UK workers have internet access
and that the average non-manual worker in the UK earns £11.88 per
hour.
The companies Chief Financial Officer Douglas Wride said:
“Nine billion pounds is actually a
conservative number when you factor bandwidth loss, storage costs
and human resource costs associated with free and open internet use
in the workplace.”
In the US, the cost of internet misuse in the workplace is
estimated by Websense at over $63 billion. According to figures
recently released by the US Labour Department, US worker
productivity fell by 1.2% in the first three months of this year,
representing the biggest drop in productivity for 8 years.
OUT-LAW.COM recommends that any business giving employees access
to internet and/or e-mail services puts in place an effective
communications policy. Click here to find out more and to obtain a
free policy for downloading and amending to suit your business.
