Allow Surfing or Not?

How many of us have wasted countless hours perusing the internet with no obvious purpose. It’s a little like constantly changing the tv station with the remote. This apparent desire to be stimulated to avoid boredom is an epidemic. Sure we all need some down time and surfing the net provides some relief. But what about in the office? What should people do when surfing occurs at work? Should the employer adopt a no surf policy? Put up site blockers? Fire surfers?

I’m not a big believer in over regulating worker conduct and behavior. Having been an employment law attorney, I’m very familiar with the traditional advice to completely eliminate surfing as a matter of policy and block certain sites. I think this shows too little trust in employees. As long as they are managed to defined production results, I don’t believe anyone should worry too much about internet surfing. Workers are adults and should be able to self police their internet surfing. It’s just a fact some will do it more than others. One would presume the bigger offender would be the less productive but I’m not aware of any evidence validating such a hypothesis.

However, my opinion changes dramatically if someone is surfing porn or other inappropriate sites. Such inappropriate behavior is generally prohibited under broader employee conduct policies. Other employees may be offended, and frankly it involves an intent to surf the web for items other than news, weather, friends’ facebook updates, etc. I think the days are long gone of trying to control internet usage. This is particularly true in office work settings. I doubt it’s a problem for manual labor positions. But the one truth which applies regardless of the passage of time and invention of new technologies is that people must still be productive.

The right balance between appropriate, universal employee policies regarding employee conduct and employee freedom is a delicate one that’s lived out each and every day throughout the United States. Only responsible people agreeing to watch out for each other’s and the team’s best interest will succeed in achieving this balance.