The boss is watching

About 25 percent of all U.S. workers admit to using the Internet while at work. That number grows well beyond 40 percent, say experts, on work days during major sports events, like March Madness or the World Series.

You can be sure your boss knows you’re spending time at work surfing the Web.

The real question is, should companies trust their employees, or should they impose tougher guidelines on office computer use?

An informal survey of Inland Northwest companies shows that many more firms have begun using tools to track worker computer use. Those firms’ managers say the increasing reliance on software that can filter or monitor what workers do on the Web are meant to protect companies from security problems and to ensure productivity.

Some companies still believe in the trust-the-worker approach, which allows for personal use of office computers within reason.

Dave Curry, CEO of World Wide Packets, said the Spokane Valley technology company has no plans to use software to monitor workers on the Web or inspect their e-mail message.

“All of us work in open cubes here and if there was abuse, it would be obvious to many,” Curry said in an e-mail response to a question about practices at his company.

More often, however, companies are taking an active role in office computer management. Many, like Spokane-based accounting firm LeMaster & Daniels, require workers to sign a clearly stated computer use policy, and then monitor that use with filtering and tracking tools.

At LeMaster & Daniels, which has about 250 workers and 13 sites in the Inland Northwest, workers are told at time of hiring their Web use could be tracked, said Randy Kembel, president of Troi IT Solutions, the technology affiliate for the accounting firm.

The firm invested in a product called SurfControl, which locks workers out of porn and gambling sites, said Kembel.

SurfControl also lets managers track where employees are browsing. The monitoring function is not normally turned on; LeMaster & Daniels, like many area firms, only monitors a worker’s computer use when an issue of productivity or policy abuse may have occurred, said Kembel. Normal, minimal use is allowed.

Recent ruling supports some use

If management’s approach is to push toward greater scrutiny, unions and workers’ rights groups are pushing back, insisting that a balance be struck over what’s allowed during the work day.

Many workers’ groups and business consultants call attention to an April 2006 ruling over the discipline faced by a City of New York worker accused of ignoring a supervisor’s orders to stop using the Internet. The worker used his office computer to visit some non-offensive sites during work hours. His managers wanted him suspended for insubordination.

A New York administrative law judge ruled that the municipal worker deserved only a minor reprimand, noting that his Web use occurred when his job duties had been completed.

While not exactly a green light for workers to browse the Web at will, the ruling by Judge John B. Spooner said that occasional personal Internet use is equal to using a work phone for personal calls.

“The Internet has become the modern equivalent of a telephone or a daily paper, providing a combination of communication and information that most employees use as frequently in their personal lives as for work,” Spooner wrote.

The advent of the Web is the latest challenge for companies that for decades have debated how to deal with workers who interrupt their work days to gossip or gather at the water cooler.

What’s different now, said Boston College psychology professor Joseph Tecce, is the added challenge caused by technology. It’s virtually impossible for a manager to see, without looking over shoulders, whether an employee at a computer is performing a work-related task or visiting eBay, he said.

Tecce said it’s common for most managers today to see personal Web use as a healthy way for workers to blow off steam or use down time to solve personal problems.

At Spokane-based Inland Northwest Health Services, training supervisor James Dodds knows the company could easily track his Web use.

“I’m fully aware they could, if they wanted to. It doesn’t matter, because my use (at the office) is minimal,” he said. During breaks, Dodds said he might use an office computer to book a campground reservation “or I might research some appliance I’m thinking of buying.”

Spokane to start monitoring use

Both the City of Spokane and Spokane County generally follow the policy adopted by Washington state for personal computer use at work. That policy allows “de minimis” — minimal and occasional — use of office computers for personal reasons if it doesn’t interfere with work.

Spokane County, like the State of Washington, uses filtering technology to prevent employees from reaching certain Web sites on their work computers. While the county uses a different monitoring tool than the state, the end result is the same: managers have the option of tracking a worker’s Web activity, said Pat Ferrell, technical services manager for Spokane County.

The City of Spokane plans to buy similar management tools, said Garv Brakel, the city’s director of information systems. Within two months he hopes to add filtering and monitoring tools for all 1,500 city workers who use computers. He hopes he can acquire the right tools for about $20,000, he said.

Adopting that approach has nothing to do with recent high-profile cases involving former Spokane Mayor Jim West and former city fireman Daniel Ross, Brakel said. Both were accused of misusing city computer equipment. West was found to have used a city laptop to visit an adult dating site, Gay.com; Ross, who resigned after having sex with a teenager at a city fire station, admitted he violated city policy by using the city’s computer network to access or transmit pornographic material.

Brakel’s plans are similar to those already in use at other companies that have 30 or more PCs and several work sites. Employees will be told the filtering software will block them from reaching prohibited sites, he said.

But Brakel is not confident that the filters are a perfect solution. “I know they are never fool-proof. If someone really wanted to find a way to reach a porn site, they would,” he said.

Also, city workers will have to have the option of ensuring they can get to sites where they have a legitimate interest, he said.

Like Spokane County, the city won’t auto- matically monitor individual Web activity, said Brakel. But he hopes to use tracking software to generate department data that could be helpful to some department heads.

For example, “we could use the (tool) to create logs” about overall online activity within a department, he said. He would then generate monthly data showing which departments have the most or least online activity, to provide guidance for supervisors.

Mike Shea, the city’s human resource manager, said some union representatives consider the city’s adoption of those tools something that must first be negotiated through contract. Shea said that’s not the way he reads state law. “This is not related to wages and benefits or work conditions,” he said.

At the same time, Brakel said the goal of adding more controls is not to squelch personal Web use by city workers. “There are times during breaks or during lunch when it’s OK” for sometime online browsing, Brakel said. “I don’t care if they are on eBay after 5 p.m. But if it’s at 3 p.m., I do care.”

Protecting from viruses

Other area companies are also adopting similar policies and monitoring tools. Some, like Spokane-based travel company Ambassadors Group, cite the need to safeguard corporate computer systems as the main reason to lock out some Web sites from office computers.

The company has decided workers visiting certain Web sites — the usual suspects featuring adult and gambling content — introduce a higher risk of computers being infected by viruses and spyware, said Robert Folie, director of information technology at Ambassadors. In practical terms, preventing access is the first line of defense in helping Ambassadors’ network steer clear of toxic Web-derived problems, he said.

Workers shouldn’t regard those controls as intrusions into privacy, Folie added. Those controls are irrelevant when identifying wasted time or idle browsing, he said, noting that “people can pretty much tell when a worker is not being efficient. There are better signs than the sites they’re surfing.”

Another recent report, published in March as part of the Hudson Employment Index, found that one-fourth of all workers surveyed said they use the Internet to do job searches while at work. More women than men — 24 percent to 22 percent — admitted they job-searched on company equipment.

That number of people using office computers to search for work decreases according to how workers relate to their bosses, according to the researchers at Hudson North America, the research firm behind the ongoing Hudson Employment Index.

“Corporate polices serve their purpose,” said Kris Rzepkowski, a spokeswoman for Hudson North America. “But employees respond best when those rules are part of the day-to-day interaction with their supervisors.”