Your work/internet policy...

[Herne Hill Hammer]

BF, News, Banking, TAB, RealEstate.com, AFL and a couple of Harness Racing sites, can pretty much get to what I want to when I need it. If someone is trying a questionable site a warning will come up giving you the option of continuing or not. If you continue there will be questions. There's been a few sacked for accessing pr0n.

Luckily we have bosses or 2/3s of my colleagues would spend all day on their stupid facebook, youtube or whatever other shite they get onto. It's pathetic.

At my last place of employment, our emails were certainly monitored. If they were unread, they would be red, green for read. It wasn't unusual to come in the next morning and all of your green emails were red again, it meant someone had gone through them.

 

[The Dice Man]

What's interesting about this is the people who do the monitoring and judgment. It's kind of like the office parking inspector.

 

[jasonwilde]

TBH, I've got more of a problem with people who think they have some sort of right to not actually be doing work while at work. I know everyone's workplace is different, and some people have more "downtime" at work than others, but surely you can survive for a couple of hours without unfettered access to Facebook, YouTube, etc.

http://blogs.hbr.org/2012/12/the-upside-of-downtime/

Click on the Google link (20% or something)

 

[Scotland]

I know facebook is blocked on my work PC, as is youtube and I think ebay. Gumtree, BigFooty, online banking etc. are all OK. I've done work with Rio Tinto and their internet filter used to block anything gambling related so if you tried to see the odds on the footytips.com.au page it would come up with a 'naughty naughty, you can't go there' message of some sort. Weird.

I can't think of anything I would need to access on my work PC that I can't. I reckon mobile phone use would be a bigger drain on businesses nowadays than internet/email.

 

[Sanders]

I blame my employer for not making my job interesting enough for me so I'm not logged in to BF all day.

If it were more interesting he'd pay you less if at all

Why do you think you get paid at all?

 

[TheMcGrathMan]

Nothing blocked, but no one really uses computers for anything requiring their own account as receptionists/nurses are constantly switching computers, and clinic room computers are pretty much set up just for history/medicine etc.

Wi-fi though so everyone just uses their phones (or tablets) for Facebook, Bigfooty for myself etc.

 

[Run n Spread]

Share options and strategic meetings for the receptionists... boy oh boy wowee

Mate receptionists are the first port of call for those approaching and dealing with clients, potential clients and the general community. Things such as assessing the general mood of clients, their motivations/complaints likelihood to switch are all relevant factors to any business. Sure a receptionist is hardly going to rock up and deliver the next shareholder/merger proposal but they are an integral part of any business. Overseas a lot of positions are like Executive Assistants and they have a very large say on the make up of an office say.

But like most Australian management doesn't surprise me a lot are too thick to realise these facts.

 

[Messenger]

Mate receptionists are the first port of call for those approaching and dealing with clients, potential clients and the general community. Things such as assessing the general mood of clients, their motivations/complaints likelihood to switch are all relevant factors to any business. Sure a receptionist is hardly going to rock up and deliver the next shareholder/merger proposal but they are an integral part of any business. Overseas a lot of positions are like Executive Assistants and they have a very large say on the make up of an office say.

But like most Australian management doesn't surprise me a lot are too thick to realise these facts.

They are the face of the business. All the more reason to have your mind on the job and focus attention on the customer in front of them. If you want to get on Facebook, do it on your break in a private area.

 

[Sanders]

Mate receptionists are the first port of call for those approaching and dealing with clients, potential clients and the general community. Things such as assessing the general mood of clients, their motivations/complaints likelihood to switch are all relevant factors to any business. Sure a receptionist is hardly going to rock up and deliver the next shareholder/merger proposal but they are an integral part of any business. Overseas a lot of positions are like Executive Assistants and they have a very large say on the make up of an office say.

But like most Australian management doesn't surprise me a lot are too thick to realise these facts.

That's not really true. Receptionists are happy smiley totty

 

[Run n Spread]

That's not really true. Receptionists are happy smiley totty

Not some of the ones I've come across.

 

[Sanders]

Not some of the ones I've come across.

Such as?

For example: I was in BP's global head office in St James Square a while back and they were all Eastern European Glamazons who asked who you had come to see, did you have an appointment and then made a phone call.

 

[worbod]

I seem to inadvertently get time to go on the internet at work. I assist students who have learning disabilities and if they are not at school on a particular day, the teachers often say I don't need me to stay in the classroom. If I am not required to go to another class because one of my colleagues might be absent, and if I don't have any paperwork to do, I often go to the library and, after checking the staff e-mails, I will go on the internet to fill in some time. But I'm always wary of whether I'm sitting somewhere students and other staff can see me if I'm looking at Big Footy or Cricket Archive or any other site which has no relation to the work I'm hired to do.

 

[ioppolo]

Our Bunnings has wifi but pretty much everything bar the Bunnings website, weather & bank sites are blocked.

 

[FootyJunkie]

no facebook... but i just use my phone for that

 

[I hate trolls]

There's nothing blocked at Federation uni but on the flipside we are watched and if we are doing anything that we shouldn't bans apply.
So what I do is only use the net if we are asked to grab something from our upload section which is called moodle.
If i need something on the internet I will be able to do all of that stuff at home.

 

[BG32]

At uni it's compulsory to be streaming nba or downloading torrents while "watching" a lecture

 

[Doss]

YouTube is blocked at my work, that's about it though.

 

[Miqar_Baqfhied]

Bit of a story at my old job - a small firm. I had a work phone which I used as my own phone. Downloaded facebook app on it. Had a massive falling out with the boss and resigned. Last day of my notice period I unloaded on him and told him to shove it. As I stormed out the office I gave him the phone back. The p*ick then got onto my facebook and posted massive slandering status updates acting as me, and I only found out when I had friends calling me later in the day. Funny thing was this bloke was paranoid of anyone badmouthing his shit company - he used to check all emails being sent out and would have the IT guy check everyones history.

Suffice to say I lawyered up....

 

[Mr_Bojangles]

My job requires a lot of research on the web so we need everything. I think the only thing banned is betting websites because one guy went off the rails with that.

I have to admit since being back to full net use at work I've found it hard to concentrate on the task at hand at times but that's down to me. I'm sure others are distracted and spend time scouring the net. You get a chance to use the net fully, if you don't use it properly you have it canned, if you still can't do your job you're out. That's my idea for net usage at work.

 

[Borry]

From my experience in career oriented work (environmental consulting) most small offices are laid back with regards to browsing non-work related websites as long as it's not pr0n etc. , however it's not encouraged as it distracts from getting important work done within deadlines.

Some big firms and government departments to my knowledge block sites like Facebook, Twitter and Hotmail.

I went down the path of browsing non-work related stuff on the internet quite regularly on work computers and found it to be a major distraction, and have occasionally failed to get tasks done by deadlines and stuffed tasks up. My last job I used my phone for browsing whilst doing work on the computer, which was significantly less of a distraction, but can still be distracting nonetheless.

 

[Catfish Alley]

My job requires a lot of research on the web so we need everything. I think the only thing banned is betting websites

Yeah, I'm in the same situation. I've also noticed that anything associated with tobacco or containing violent content is blocked.

 

[Miqar_Baqfhied]

So has anyone got a tap on the shoulder from someone saying 'we've seen you've spent this amount of time on bigfooty or whatever - explain yourself...'

Can this stuff be tracked?

 

[kfc1]

Completely outdated. A novel concept may be treating people as paid professionals to do a job. Treat them as adults without looking over their shoulders every 5 minutes and you may find work actually gets done and people use the net as a quick 5 minute break/recharge before relaunching. For the most part workers get the business done if treated like valued adults. (At least I've found).

Put draconian rules and silly procedures in place and you are bound to get a negative reaction. No one likes being excessively controlled and they will bite back.

We tightened up our internet policy when receptionists were more interested in winning an eBay auction or scoring on eHarmony than dealing with the customer in front of them.

Agree completely with both posts, hence the problem that companies face.

Unfortunately some people work better with little interference and productivity goes down with unnecessary rules/regs and others need rules and penalties otherwise they take advantage and get nothing done.

 

[kfc1]

When I was on work experience in Year 10, I was there for a week and one day I was in an office. I was doing data entry for like 2 hours and then the chick I was "working" under said there wasn't anything else for me to do and gave me her password/username so I can do whatever on a computer for the rest of the day. Then in a half serious/half joking tone she just said "No pr0n though because the boss can see everything on his computer". Didn't really know what to say. I mean I don't usually watch pr0n when there are like 20 people around me who can all see what I'm doing. Did she think I was going to rub one out right there and then?

You're a year 10 kid, she probably thought you would do it just for the lols

 

[BG32]

So has anyone got a tap on the shoulder from someone saying 'we've seen you've spent this amount of time on bigfooty or whatever - explain yourself...'

Can this stuff be tracked?

Not unless a specific program has been installed or you're going through the companies proxy.