Question: Cutting Down on Cyberloafing

You are a member of the Human Resources organization of a small tech training development company with some 50 full and part-time workers. A casual check of how workers spend their time indicates that there is a large amount of time spent sending and receiving personal texts and emails, shopping online, and checking of social media Web sites. Especially alarming is the casual viewing of "soft porn" which could open the firm to an expensive lawsuit if an employee sees a coworker viewing porn at work and complains that the company has created a hostile work environment. While the company has made it clear that it can monitor workers' use of information system resources, no guidelines have been set that clearly indicate acceptable and unacceptable use of information system resources.

Review Questions

1. What is the harm in nonproductive use of information system resources, isn't everybody doing it?

2. What are the keys to successful acceptance and implementation of new policies and procedures to reduce cyberloafing?

Critical Thinking Questions

1. Do you think that it would help to involve a small group of employees in defining appropriate use guidelines or should this be done strictly by members of the Human Resources organization (you and one other person)? Why do you feel this way?

2. Should some sort of penalty be defined for violation of the guidelines or will this simply come across as "too heavy handed" and cause a worker rebellion?