Do you spend time online, while on work, for personal use or entertainment for checking your e-mail, shopping online, visiting social networking sites, chatting online, or playing games online? Are you aware that your boss may be knowing about your Internet use for personal purposes during office hours? In fact, as per studies conducted, people spend up to about 25% of their office time online for personal use. Do you think that this being the extent of the time spent the people online, while on work, your boss would still be not knowing that those working under him would be spending time on Internet during office hours? Of course, it may be true that your boss may tolerate a limited Internet usage during office hours, but you may still be under watch.
There is every reason to believe that your boss can definitely monitor your Internet activities, if he wishes so to do. Whether he actually does it or not is a different issue altogether, since he may like to ignore a limited use of Internet for personal use during office hours. That you may check your e-mail while at work or do some search on Internet or check one or two stock quotes, may generally be acceptable to the boss. But, if someone has a tendency to spend hours on Internet, instead of doing the regular official work, it may not go unnoticed, and it may invite potential trouble in the employment. In fact, there are people who spend considerable time every day even on things like dating, visiting sites that may embarrass you, playing games, and the like. Since Internet usage can become an addiction quite easily, if used beyond a limit, it may push to the employer to a stage where he can no more ignore it.
These days it is quite easy to monitor the Internet use through some software. In fact, each keystroke and each mouse movement can be recorded on your computer without your knowledge. All your inbound and outbound communication can be monitored. It is also possible to capture the screens while you’re active on your computer, that may enable your boss to see screens of your visits to some embarrassing websites. Moreover, since you’re sitting in the office owned or controlled by your boss, it is quite easy for your boss to put some hidden video camera in the room to video record all the activities. Let me again repeat that is not that all these things would be done by your boss; but it can be done depending upon the factual matrix of each situation. Your activities on your social networking accounts can also be easily monitored since one can try to become your follower or your friend on such social networking sites. For example, if your Twitter account is public, it is possible for anybody to find and read your tweets. Accordingly it is safe to presume that your boss can monitor everything that you do online while sitting in the office. Therefore, it is always better to err on the safer side and not to take unnecessary risk.
If you’re working in a big company, your company may have the regular Internet Policy for the employees which may lay down rules for limiting the Internet usage while on work. It may be advisable to go through the Internet Policy, if the company has one, and adhere to that. Even if your company does not have a formal Internet Policy for the employees, it is always advisable to use the Internet wisely while on work. Much in the same manner as your company may allow you to make a few phone calls for your personal use, it may also allow you some Internet usage for personal purposes, for example, for checking your e-mails or for doing some occasional shopping. However, an excessive Internet use while on work may be difficult to explain. The usual explanation that you were browsing the Internet after completing your office work may not help you if your Internet use is beyond permissible limits, since it may indicate that you don’t have much office work to keep you busy throughout the day which means either your boss will throw more work on you to keep you busy or may decide that your job or post is redundant due to lack of work. After all, the employer is paying you to do the official work and not the private work.
There may be other reasons why your employer may be concerned about your Internet use while on work. For example, if you have the habit of downloading big files running into GB’s, it may choke the network bandwidth available to your office. Likewise, visiting suspicious and objectionable sites and downloading files that are not safe, may expose your office computer network to viruses, malware and spyware.
In fact, even if your boss doesn’t mind your browsing the Internet while on work, it’s in your own interest to limit your Internet usage for the simple reason that your activities could be under watch and your privacy may be under risk. Since you’re working on somebody else’s computer in the office, it is quite possible that your personal e-mails or your personal activities may be read / watched. And, also think of the embarrassment that may be caused to you if your visits to some objectionable sites are seen by others. Using Internet for private use while on work at the office computer is similar, at least to some extent, to using a computer in a cyber-cafe.
In view of these reasons, it is always advisable to exercise caution while using the Internet for personal use during the office working hours. Moreover, always presume that someone would be monitoring your Internet activities in office, therefore, it is better to keep your personal Internet use within permissible and safe limits.
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