hudson survey finds manager supervision effective at curbing personal internet use
new york /prnewswire/ — one-quarter (23 percent) of u.s. workers who use a computer at work admit to having searched for a new job on their companies’ time and resources, according to a new survey by hudson. on top of that, three in ten send and receive personal e-mails at work at least most days, if not every day. another 28 percent say they do so occasionally.
most workers who use computers say their employers know they use the internet for personal business. in fact, three-quarters of them believe their bosses are aware of how much they use the internet for non-work related activities, and half (48 percent) say their companies monitor their computer use. of those who believe their internet use is screened, 74 percent report that their companies have formal policies regarding e-mail and web usage.
interestingly, 26 percent of workers who believe their internet use is monitored have looked for new career opportunities while at work. that figure drops to 21 percent for employees whose managers know they use the internet for non-work related tasks, and jumps to 32 percent for workers who believe their manager is unaware.
“employers should not discount the impact attentive managers have on shaping workplace behavior and productivity,” according to kris rzepkowski, interactive manager, hudson north america. “corporate policies serve their purpose, but employees respond best when those rules are a part of the day-to-day interaction with their supervisors.”
however, managers are no better than the rest of the work force when it comes to using the internet for personal matters. not only have 24 percent of them owned up to job hunting at work, but one-third send or receive personal e-mails on the job at least most days, compared to 26 percent of non-managers.
the survey also looked at how much time workers spend each day online attending to personal matters, whether or not they blog about their employers, if they know a colleague who has been reprimanded for inappropriate computer use and how frequently they check personal email, surf the web, shop online, and visit chat rooms/blogs. data broken down by employer type, company size, managerial status, gender, age and race is available online at
www.hudson-index.com.
the hudson internet use survey is based on a national poll of 2,694 u.s. workers who use computers at work conducted march 11-13, 2006 and was compiled by rasmussen reports, llc, an independent research firm (www.rasmussenreports.com). the margin of sampling error for a survey based on this number of interviews is approximately +/-3 percent with a 95 percent level of confidence. a more detailed data report is available at www.hudson-index.com.