KEY POINTS:
Once upon a time companies blanket banned the evil internet from employees. These days few people can do their jobs without access to it. But to what extent should it be controlled?
On the surface, there's a good case to be made for banning the websites that eat up employees' hours and company broadband such as Facebook, Bebo, MySpace, Hotmail, Trade Me, iTunes, gaming and even porn sites.
Websites are also only part of the problem. Corporate IT policy needs to cover all aspects of technology including the use of computer hardware and software, printers, fax machines, voicemail, email, web and intranet access.
And imposing bans on named websites may not be the way to go say many human resources professionals. New websites pop up too often to be controlled and employees often treat bans as a joke or an invitation to get around them.
Human resources consultant Scott Constantine, of Performance Link NZ, says misuse of technology is an issue for companies of all sizes and falls into four areas:
* Work distractions, which affect productivity.
* Increased security risks.
* Inappropriate activities.
* Increased IT costs.
The answer, he says, is not to cut off access and set one-size-fits-all rules, with the threat of punitive action, but to create a culture and environment where employees have the company's best interests at heart and setting guiding principles.
This can be coupled with some filtering and scanning to identify objectionable material being accessed on company systems.
Taking the guiding principles approach respects staff as adults and is more likely to result in a company culture that people want to work in. This is particularly important for companies looking to recruit and retain younger workers.
Underlying the argument of bans versus principles is who should be making the corporate IT policy. Historically, it has been IT departments, because they were the most likely to understand the technology. It should however be a joint effort between the HR, IT, legal and marketing departments, says Constantine. "HR needs to take a lead role in terms of setting people-related strategies for the organisation and IT needs to take a lead role in terms of the network and protecting against IT security risk. [Whatever] balance is, it needs to be a joint effort."
When IT has complete control some absurdities can emerge. Beverley Main, chief executive of the Human Resources Institute of New Zealand, said a member of her organisation was trying to pay online for a conference and found that her IT department had banned credit card use.
HR departments also need access to employment websites for legitimate work purposes, says Constantine. "I've had instances in the past where IT staff have taken [it] upon themselves to block all access to job sites, no doubt believing this was in the company's best interests. I would always prefer that people stay because they want to be in the organisation."
There are many other areas where blanket bans don't always work. The assumption that the use of certain technology is automatically unrelated to work isn't always the case. MP3 clips could include marketing presentations for company use.
Focusing people on what they are supposed to be achieving and how their tasks and objectives link to the organisation's goals can also help avoid an unanticipated misuse of company systems. One Auckland employer found itself in an awkward situation earlier this year when a client company complained about religious material being emailed to its staff.
Companies at the more liberal end of the corporate IT policy scale include Vodafone - which because it is looking to use channels such as YouTube and Bebo for marketing doesn't ban them. The company prides itself on being "funky, with it and hip" and gives general guidance on the use of technology rather than a "thou shalt not" approach.
At the other end of the scale, some government departments and other public bodies such as district health boards lock down virtually everything, making allowable exceptions.
Regardless of the approach, all companies, says Catherine Taylor, board member of HRINZ, need to have a corporate IT policy in place, because staff sometimes don't understand that what they can access at home is not necessarily acceptable at work. "Staff new to the workforce, or staff not being familiar with company policies, may think that it is fine to surf the internet during the day for non-work related reasons."
At Kiwibank, where Taylor is general manager of HR resources, the policy is given to new employees and to all staff once a year as a reminder.
Trade Me is said to be one of the biggest corporate time wasters in New Zealand and is widely banned.
But companies that take the banning approach are wasting their time, says the website's head of commercial Mike O'Donnell. If a website is banned, staff will spend more time finding their way around the ban, he adds.
Staff who want to access banned websites may go to Google's language tools and have Trade Me translated into another language, resulting in content showing as a Google page and bypassing firewalls.
More companies and government departments are realising that Trade Me is a legitimate business tool, adds O'Donnell.
Hyundai uses the Trade Me database of sales to determine trade in prices for used vehicles, and government departments such as the Inland Revenue Department and Customs study Trade Me for regulatory purposes.
"If you have time wasters in an organisation they will always work out ways to waste time," he says.
