Are you Ready for Cyber Monday?

by Ian Holt

With nearly every retailer from Costco to Amazon advertising Cyber Monday, when do you suppose busy employees will get their online shopping done? In 2002 a survey of 2000 US companies nationwide found that half of all employees with online access planned to do holiday shopping from their company computer. We suspect that number has grown over the years as one third of those employees volunteered that they would knowingly violate their company’s Internet use policy prohibiting shopping at work. Another 20 percent of online employees had no idea if their company had a policy or not. And this was before the term "Cyber Monday" was even advertised!

Since the enterprise reaches into the employees personal time, the employee may feel justified in extending his or her personal life into the enterprise. Activities like online shopping, vacation planning, gaming, personal e-mail and social media are considered quid pro quo by the employee.

Your company's Internet Use Policy must be flexible enough to coincide with actual behavior and the flexibility needed to manage your workforce. Something with configurable time controls would allow you to easily restrict the days and hours during which users can access the Internet. You can also allow free access with or without monitoring during specified time periods so shoppers can shop away on Cyber Monday at lunch or after work.

QeH2 can help your company create a company Internet Usage Policy that fits your actual internet usage.