1. Internet usage at work – statistics for 2009
2009 was a tough year, especially from the perspective of economics. As a
consequence of the economics there was a “bad effect” which spread within
all important sectors and departments striking all companies from small ones
to large ones. There were drastic measures taken in order to face the
financial crisis. Employees were requested higher productivity and there was
a better control over their activity.
In 2009, 54% of US companies have decided to block social networks at
work and 8% have already fired employees because of the use of Facebook
during working hours.
Cyclope-Series has made a study on 200 employees monitored 1 with a non-
invasive employee monitoring software to see which the trend of the internet
usage within a company was. The study was conducted during June 1, 2009
– December 31, 2009 and dates were provided from more companies.
So here are some of the statistics based on the information recorded with the
time tracking software:
• Employees are checking personal e-mail up to 5 times per day during
working hours 2
• 24% of employees spend more than one hour on social networks
during working time
• Facebook is the most popular social network and 90% of the
employees are logging periodically into their accounts from work
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2. • In over 90% of cases, time for lunch break is exceeded by employees
• The average time spend by an employee on chat is 30 minutes per day
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3. • Employees start the activity on computers at an average of 30 minutes
after the computer’s startup. If the program starts at 8, the computer
opens at 8, but active applications can be observed from 8.30
• After monitoring, has been noticed that on Tuesday is being recorded
the most active time spent at the computer, including overtime. Beside
that, the days from the end of the week are less productive.
• 70% of employees were spending overtime at work.
As a conclusion, it seems that employees are indeed spending more time at
work then the normal working hours. But there is also an increase usage of
Internet for personal purpose. Even if employees are spending more time at
work it doesn’t mean they are more productive.
1.
Employees were aware about the fact that their activity was recorded and
before this action took place, they signed up an agreement
2.
The application used to collect the reports and dates is non-invasive: did
not record the content of the e-mails, chat, documents or passwords but only
the activity and time spend on each of them.
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