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Employers who make Internet facilities available to their employees are majorly worried about bandwidth usage, security and commensurate return of investment, among other things. If the designed speed and efficiency is not being achieved, there is always a justified cause to worry. It has been shown that monitoring of Internet use helps to increase security, improve productivity, reduce employee misbehavior, competitive information leaks, and liability risks. However, it must be managed with tact lest it becomes discouraging to employees.

Suspected Causes of Worry

Websites which offer free e-mail and chat rooms are very popular among Internet users whether at work or at home. Though there may be official e-mail service provided but employees do not feel safe and comfortable using them for their private uses because of the rules of the company and fear of possible censoring. Therefore there is always the need for them to go to free email sites during working hours. These include Yahoomail, Hotmail, gmail among others. Some of them would log on to these sites and keep them running throughout the work period to monitor their mails.

Others may even go to chat rooms and chat away the working hours. When you see them sitting put behind their desks staring at the screen, they show an attitude of busyness but they are busy working against the bottom line of the business that employed them. There are other websites that offer very interesting and exciting pastime like tracing your street on GoogleEarth, or playing a downloaded game of chess and crossword puzzle.

Downloads of heavy multimedia files that are not related to the bottom line of the business may also cause a traffic hold up on the bandwidth. Some employees run online courses which apart from distracting their attention from the work they are paid to do, also use up company resources as they selfishly pursue their ambitions.

Employees addicted to pornography find the Internet a suitable and safe place to enjoy their passion. The danger is that some of these porn sites and even free game offering sites have proved to be the least suspected landmine for virus attack.

Lastly, I think some companies are also be worried if they suspect their employees might be using their Internet facilities to seek greener pastures by visiting their competitors' websites while at work. Closely related to this is the exchange of vital information that may occur and this is not in the best interest of the business

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