Internet Abuse at Workplace | What Are the Solutions?

The internet has been a primary space for communication and entertainment. These applications are addictive and fun to use, which has led to some problems. The workplaces have to deal with internet addiction and internet abuse.

Most companies consider internet misuse for personal purposes unethical. This problem has been growing with the rapid growth of the use of the internet and applications.

There is an increasing number of internet access, remote working, and virtual workplaces. It has made it harder to monitor employees' internet usage, which is leading to internet misuse.

A study conducted by Net Ratings found that 92% of online stock trading was done from work locations. It also found that 46% of holiday shopping took place during office hours from work locations.

Another study by SexTracker found 70% of all Internet traffic received from pornographic sites occurs during work hours.

You can see that the problem of internet misuse by employees during work hours is rampant. What are the solutions to this? Before searching for the solution, you need to understand what Internet Abuse is in the Workplace?

What is Internet Abuse at Workplace?

Internet abuse is the inappropriate use of the internet during working hours. It includes a range of offenses varying from using personal emails to viewing inappropriate pornographic websites. This may raise ethical issues as office policies include rules against the frequency.

Usually, the offense of Internet Abuse during work includes :

● Viewing personal email and social media

● Downloading movies/ music

● Playing online games

● Gambling sites

● Viewing pornographic content, and

● Browsing through content unrelated to office work.

These Internet abuses at the workplace are often caused by monotony and boredom. The needs for short-term comfort, distraction, and relief are also to blame.

Consequences of Internet Abuse at Workplace

However, the internet in the workplace is a necessity for work purpose but assessing it more for personal online activity is unacceptable. The misuse of the internet during office hours seems so seductive to employees. Because the internet access is free or is faster than what they usually use, this causes many consequences for the organization.

Some of the consequences of surfing the internet at the workplace are as follows:

Reduced productivity of employees

Employees get distracted by the number of notifications. They seek comfort to look at other socials when doing work. This interrupts their workflow and decreases their productivity.

A decrease in employee morale

Employees see their peers or supervisors using their devices for personal entertainment. If they do not receive any consequences, employee morale decreases.

Reduced profit margin

The profit margin of the company declines with reduced employee productivity and morale.

Reduced internet bandwidth/speed

Employees use the office internet to download multimedia content for their entertainment. This leads to the internet becoming slower and actual work will get hindered.

Disturbance of office environment

Disturbance occurs in the work environment with employees checking their cell phones. They also use the internet to send content to their peers.

Solutions of Internet Abuse at Workplace

In spite of Internet abuse being rampant, there are many solutions available today. Your technical support team can check on or monitor internet usage. It helps to prevent employee misuse of the internet. It is a challenge for them to reduce employees' internet misuse.

There are various methods available to trace employee PCs. One of the best methods to monitor employees' internet usage is through the use of employee monitoring software. Employee monitoring software allows users to track their internet usage at the workplace, which can make monitoring internet usage easy.

According to a survey by American Management Association, more than 80% of most well-known companies monitor the internet usage and phone usage of their employees. This employee monitoring software helps monitor the internet usage and activities of employees. One of the most reliable forms of employee monitoring software is:

Spy Apps or Employee Monitoring Software

Spy applications are the most dependable forms of monitoring internet activities. Spy apps are software that allows you to retrieve information with help of a mobile application.

Spy application is a monitoring management software used to track hidden information and also used for monitoring activities. This software is capable of retrieving information from the targeted device. It allows you to monitor the internet activities of the device of the employees. These applications are designed to track other people’s devices without the need for authentication.

This software is generally simple to use and offers various benefits to the user. It can do this so without letting your employee know that they are being monitored. The applications run in the background with no notification. This will allow you to spy on the person without the application being detected.

What can Spy Apps do?

Spy application will help employers track the activities of their employees. This application will help you monitor employee activities such as:

• Track browsing history

The spy app will make you capable of retrieving the entire browsing history of your employee. This will help you negate whether you are searching for work-related topics. It helps determine if employees are browsing the internet for personal content.

You will also be able to check if the sites are productive or unproductive. You will also be able to check the timestamp of the URLs visited by the employees.

• Social Media spy

The application helps you determine your employees are using their social media handles. This includes apps such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat, Whatsapp, etc. This will allow you to view their calls, messages, photos/ videos sent group chats, and other activities along with time and duration of use.

• Email spy

You can also monitor the incoming and outgoing emails with the timestamp of every email. You will also be able to access the attachment sent or received by your employee. You will be able to monitor their email using habits during work.

• Track call logs

You can also track the phone calls of your employees and monitor them along with the time and duration of the call.

• Track text messages

You will also be able to read all the outgoing and incoming text messages of your employees.

• Track application activity

This helps you track every application and also monitors employee time usage on work unrelated applications. Such as gaming applications and social media applications. You will also be able to monitor messages, notifications, feeds, and personal accounts.

Other features are available that help employers track and monitor employees are: tracking MMS, tracking location, photo spy, video spy, Wi-Fi logger, keylogging, screenshots, app activity, installed application, and sim location.

But all these features may vary with the employee monitoring software you use.

Best Employee Monitoring Softwares

Since its being necessary for the business to track their employee as remote working is increasing. You are unable to know either your employee are working during office hours or not. So, get the best employee monitoring software for your business.

Below is a list of some best employee monitoring software that can spy on your employee:

• WorkPuls
• Monitask
• InterGuard
• ActivTrak
• Veriato
• SentryPC
• Hubstaff

Conclusion

Internet misuse is a daunting prospect for most employers. It causes reduced productivity and even reduced profit margins. Therefore, the use of spy applications or employee monitoring software is essential for employee internet management.

It helps employers monitor employee activities. It is one of the best and most used business solutions for internet abuse in the workplace allowing employees to work sincerely.

If you are an employer then you can enjoy the benefits of spy or tracking apps by monitoring your employees. Nevertheless, everything has its positive and negative aspects, and spy apps are no exception. Thus, you must know the pros and cons of using spy apps for better results.