I saw this article this morning on the train ride to work. My husband's company significantly blocks the Web, and even if he logs in to his email on our home computer, he can't surf the Web freely until he logs out.
So I was wondering about all of you? Is the Web wide open at your work?
Young workers push employers for wider Web access
By MARTHA IRVINE - The Associated Press -Sunday, July 12, 2009 1:28 PM
CHICAGO -- Ryan Tracy thought he'd entered the Dark Ages when he graduated college and arrived in the working world.
His employer blocked access to Facebook, Gmail and other popular Internet sites. He had no wireless access for his laptop and often ran to a nearby cafe on work time so he could use its Wi-Fi connection to send large files.
Sure, the barriers did what his employer intended: They stopped him and his colleagues from using work time to goof around online. But Tracy says the rules also got in the way of legitimate work he needed to do as a scientific analyst for a health care services company.
"It was a constant battle between the people that saw technology as an advantage, and those that saw it as a hindrance," says the 27-year-old Chicagoan, who now works for a different company.
He was sure there had to be a better way. It's a common complaint from young people who join the work force with the expectation that their bosses will embrace technology as much as they do. Then some discover that sites they're supposed to be researching for work are blocked. Or they can't take a little down time to read a news story online or check their personal e-mail or social networking accounts. In some cases, they end up using their own Internet-enabled smart phones to get to blocked sites, either for work or fun...
So some are wondering: Could companies take a different approach, without compromising security or workplace efficiency, that allows at least some of the online access that younger employees particularly crave?
There is, of course, another side of the story - from employers who worry about everything from wasted time on the Internet to confidentiality breaches and liability for what their employees do online...
From a survey Flynn did this year with the American Management Association, she believes nearly half of U.S. employers have a policy banning visits to personal social networking or video sharing sites during work hours. Many also ban personal text messaging during working days...
As a result, more employers are experimenting with opening access...
But that also means many companies are still figuring out their online policies and how to deal with the blurring lines between work and personal time - including social networking, even with the boss...
Meantime, her advice to any employee is this: "Don't start blogging. Don't start tweeting. Don't even start e-mailing until you read the company policy."
Religion
I chose "Yes, my company blocks certain web sites." Facebook and Myspace are blocked here, as is any site that might be slightly "questionable" (not that I have tried to go on questionable sites, btw, but I have run into a few that are blocked that I didn't think would be- like one of the celeb gossip sites or something). Also, RedState is randomly blocked, which I thought was weird. I'm the same as your husband- if I log on from home, I have to log out before I can go to any of those sites.
1I just wanted to add, I think it would be nearly impossible to do nothing at all personal on your computer from work, especially for people in their 20's. That's similar to thinking that you are never going to make a personal phoone call during the day. And, how could a company ban personal texting, as long as the phone is not a company phone?
2But they don't block sugar?
I said we don't have a filter, but like you, I've never tried to go to any risque sites.
Do you think it affects your productivity negatively or positively?
3I was wondering that too, Tiff!
4Going on the internet at work, or having blocked sites?
I don't think the blocked
sites affect my productivity- they have a message that if you really need to use the site, to let IT know, and they will consider unblocking it. They would probably be able to unblock for a
specific person for a specific period of time.
5I just always wonder if these controls are really effective at doing what the employer thinks they do. What if employees with blocked Internet spend all their time trying to find ways to beat the system? Or if you feel so untrustworthy in the eyes of your supervisors, perhaps you'll be more likely to 'act out' because apparently that's what management expects from you. I don't know if I'm making sense...
6I've had employers on both sides of the spectrum. One employer didn't restrict any kind of internet access. We were issued laptops and could take them home if we needed to. Productivity fluctuated, but all of the required work for the day was completed by the end of the day. Even though we all had our own phone lines, personal phone calls were pretty minimal. Even on the slowest of days, there is only so much you can do online before you need to get up and do something different!
On the other side...I've had an employer that restricted essentially anything that didn't relate to their company. So no personal email, no personal banking, bill paying, no social networking. No websites requiring usernames or passwords. It was pretty absurd. Some employees spent a good amount of time figuring out ways to get around the internet block. Personal phone calls and text messaging definitely increased. Personal correspondence from work emails increased. Productivity as a whole stayed the same, since everyone found different ways to slack off. So it's not like they really accomplished anything by blocking internet usage...
7I was kind of thinking of the same question. I mean, even if your company does not block the internet, some people may just not be interested in using the internet in their downtime. What do these people do? From my personal experience, they either work more slowly throughout the day to balance out their workload, or have more personal conversations with coworkers. It's just a balancing act, really. I don't think that blocking sites encourages more productivity in the least.
8My place of work blocks all outside sites.
9Yeah that's kind of how I feel --- It might "block" some personal time, but ultimately people can find other ways to waste time at work.
I think we really need to just change our perception of productivity. To be honest, if I were an employer and my employees met all the deadlines and did good work, I could careless if they spent an hour or so surfing the net during down time.
Maybe once I'm a manager that will
change. 
10When I worked for stop and shop in college, we were only allowed access in an intranet. Only websites that came from corporate. If we need to know competitor prices, we either had to get some one to operate around the internet so we could get the online flier or some one had to drive down the road to swipe a flier from the competitor store. Inconvenient.
Where i work now, they leave the internet wide open. Of course, we aren't supposed to do any personal internet business at work, but they don't enforce it in anyway. I work in a library and the policy is that we don't police the internet for patron use. I've seen patrons watching porn in the library and we aren't allowed to say anything to them unless another patron complains.
11Oh weird! You can't say anything if you see it?
12My company blocks Facebook and MySpace along with any gaming sites and risque sites. Oh and eBay.
13My former director had a strict "we don't police the internet that is a slippery slope" outlook. No one agreed with it but she was the boss so what can you do?
14Crazy! I thought most libraries had built in filters on the computers.
15I read an article about library internet policies, and how they weren't really any. Wonder if I could find it....
16I see your cute little pitcher surfing...
17Hmm maybe he does!
18Probably, most of the cute ones do.
Gosh, I have such a crush on him!
19Comment #7
Interesting comparison! I am taking that to work with me. We discussed this last week. I think having people with a little more freedom but given specific goals each day--who cares what else they do as long as the work gets done. Happy employees tend to do more.
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