Internet misuse at workplace

SAN DIEGO: Websense, Inc., a provider of employee Internet management solutions, today said that Internet misuse in the workplace costs American corporations more than $178 billion annually in lost productivity.

This translates into a loss of more than $5,000 per employee, per year.

Workplace Internet access continues to increase, resulting in more than 68 million U.S. employees accessing the web at work in 2005, according to the IDC Internet Commerce Market Model version 9.1.

However, as web use becomes increasingly engaging and interactive, workers are spending more office time surfing the Internet for personal reasons.

A recent America Online and Salary.com survey reported that 44.7 percent of the more than 10,000 American workers polled cited web surfing as their number one distraction at work.

Furthermore, according to a recent Websense/Harris Interactive Web@Work survey, 50 percent of employees surveyed who access the Internet at work admit they do so for both work and personal reasons.

Based upon this statistic, of the 68 million U.S. employees who access the Internet at work, approximately 34 million spend time surfing the web for personal usage at the office.

This time spent "cyberslacking," multiplied by the average U.S. salary, as reported by the U.S. Bureau of Labor's National Compensation Survey, accounts for the multi-billion dollar crisis facing American businesses.

"The web can be a critical business tool; however, in some cases its misuse can offset the productivity benefits of Internet access," said Leo Cole, vice president of marketing at Websense, Inc.

According to the Web@Work survey, among those employees who use the web during the workday for personal reasons, the most popular non work-related websites accessed are news (81%), personal email (61%), online banking (58%), travel (56%) and shopping (52%).