As I passed by a University of Michigan librarian unlucky enough to have her computer screen visible to passers-by and saw that she was on Facebook, I thought about the rights of employers to restrict the internet use of their employees. I believe there have been mixed results from studies of whether or not allowing employees unfettered access to the internet hurts or helps productivity. I can't recall the source, but somewhere I recall reading that workers who take short breaks every hour to do some leisure web browsing are more productive than those who do not take those breaks.In any case, let's assume that businesses want to restrict their employees use of the internet for leisure purposes in order to boost productivity. I'm sure many employers block ESPN, YouTube, Facebook, maybe anything that's classified as having adult content using some sort of Net Nanny. But what if the employer wanted to really restrict their employees internet use? What if they thought that it would be better for their employees to, say, read the complete works of William Shakespeare or learn about particle physics than to be on Farmville for an hour or two a day? Somewhat less benignly, what if they wanted their employees to only read or watch materials that showed their company and product in a positive light, or endorsed a particular kind of lifestyle? Could they restrict their employees access to, say, one or two sites like this? Are they within their rights to restrict their employees in this manner?
I have little sympathy for employees demanding the right to surf the net at work. When you are at work, you're supposed to be working. Yes, there are the studies that say that these little breaks can boost productivity, but I don't think there's any research on whether certain kinds of restricted internet surfing is just as good at this. So the employee defense of "a bit of cyberslacking makes me more productive" wouldn't necessarily contradict an employer's right to limit their internet use how they see fit.
Its like having the ultimate captive audience. Sure, you could choose not to watch any of the content we make available to you, but then you'd have to do work (ugh!). Options that might have been unappealing at home suddenly seem interesting. Regarding the scenarios listed above, I'd have some faith that employees would forego any ham-handed attempts to brainwash them into loving the company they work for (opting to actually work instead of watching or reading poorly made, pro-corporate content) but (assuming a certain kind of intellectual curiosity) might actually respond to reading Shakespeare or learning particle physics. It wouldn't have to be Shakespeare, of course. Whatever the employer thought it would be enriching to know could be substituted.
Research on persuasion suggests that convincing someone to do or buy something they didn't already have some inclination to do or buy is extremely difficult if not impossible. If you restricted my access at work to Fox News, I wouldn't suddenly become a right-wing ideologue. I'd get back to work, or daydream, or talk to a coworker. But if its something you've been meaning to do, perhaps the work setting is the proper restrictive environment, providing that unappealing alternative, that would finally get you to read that classic you've been meaning to read.
3 comments:
Hi Elliot, I forgot you blogged.
And, sorry, but UGH. Having worked in a stressful office environment for the past five years, I find several elements of this post presumptuous and unrealistic. The offering of "better," or rather, "bettering" content presupposes that workers would *want* to learn something on their breaks; if such a system was implemented, I would bet that more often, workers would instead go chat with a coworker (regardless of whether that person is on a break), bring something to do from home, or, most likely, just spend the next 15 minutes on their phone.
Employers obviously can do whatever they want in regards to Internet usage policies. But the more restrictive they are, the more resentful employees will be of the monitoring and network control, and that resentment will only increase as younger workers raised on [eventually-] unfettered Internet access join the workplace. Resentment will kill morale and hurt productivity; what employer wants that? Not to mention such policies may become moot in a few more years as personal Internet access hardware matures.
Adding control mechanisms to breaks would build even more animosity in workers in stressful positions.
Now, someone individually deciding to use their work breaks in a super productive way, that sounds like a great idea. But few people are predisposed towards taking advantage every waking moment. It's just not that common.
tl;dr Workers want to choose what to do with their off time, and if you try to make that choice for them, they will hate you for it.
Whoops, I knew I was forgetting something:
Cheers,
Joanna
Hey Joanna! Thanks for posting!
I agree that restricting employees' internet access hurts morale, and there is some research that suggests internet breaks increase productivity, but I think we need to get more fine-grained information about the relationships between workplace morale, productivity, and restricted internet access before we conclude that certain types of restriction hurt morale or productivity. Certainly, banning porn sites probably harms neither, and I'm reluctant to believe that banning Facebook at work would hurt morale more than it helps productivity.
I think we need to keep in mind that, for better or worse, many people don't get to choose much about their employment situation: they have to take what they're given. It seems odd to me for workers to claim that unfettered internet access is a workplace right in the way that lunchbreaks are a right, so most employees would be likely to make due with restricted use if that's what they're given. And as you note, employers can do whatever they want in regards to internet usage policies, so its a fascinating morale/legal question as to whether the employers can restrict internet usage to certain sites.
Of course there will always be alternatives to wasting time online at work, but if even a significant minority of employees of a major corporation would rather visit certain types of work-condoned websites than talk to their neighbors, you've given employers an interesting opportunity for shaping the information environment of their employees.
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