From online shopping to using the printer for our kid’s school project, we have all used office hardware or software for our own personal “To-Do” list. The question is, how much is too much of this and where should business leaders draw the line? Our work and home lives may seem very interconnected as Americans spend more and more time at the office and bring. work home after hours. Or many Americans are now working remotely thus their office is also their home. With this interconnectivity comes a blurred line of what can and should be done at work for personal gain. Read on to look at this issue closer.
For many of us, we feel like we are always at work. We answer work calls in the car, check work emails at home, and think about work endlessly. So, it goes to figure that when something personal needs to be done, that taking a few minutes out of work time should be acceptable, right? Here is a common sense look at this issue from an IT perspective.
Since there is a good chance that it is the unspoken truth that “everyone” uses office time to complete personal stuff, business leaders should consider the following:
- Establish guidelines that allow for personal tasks. Social media browsing may be one such personal task that you will want to discuss. Keep in mind that what may seem like mindless scrolling may actually help your company in the long run. For example, if your company is on Facebook or LinkedIn and your employees are interacting with your pages this is a positive thing even if it is on company time. Make some rules, however about usage and time for these tasks.
- Be sure to always have security in mind when creating guidelines for employees. Sure, it would be great to use the tablet and other devices that are office property to do your personal tasks during your lunch break, but be sure the network is secure and that precautions are taken to safeguard the physical property.
- Have the IT department involved in any policy that is written on this subject. The IT department can let employees know what is acceptable use and what is not. They can train employees on what red flags to look for when using software and how to use the hardware properly.
- Keep track of the level of access of each employee so that if personal projects interfere with the office it can be swiftly shutdown. No one needs the system slowing down because employees are using old or outdated software to do a personal task.
Do you need help training your employees or an IT specialists who can help with all of your support questions? Call M&H Consulting at 1-866 964-8324 or visit our website.
Categorised in: applications, Apps, back up, Business Management, Security