 t's a quintessential us versus them, employer-employee situation in the case of companies' net usage and net-time policies. While employees crib in hushed or guarded tones about blocked access to certain sites and restricted access to net, employers' reason that the net is a "privilege" and its unsanctioned use adversely affects productivity. Their concerns might be well placed. The Internet, the grand master of information, is increasingly being judged by companies as a costly employee time-waster. Websense, a San Deigo-based software maker, estimated that US companies lose $63 billion a year in productivity because of the Net. Findings from technology researcher Gartner corroborate these reports. A January 2000 report titled Components of a PC policy" stated "Internet use in many organizations is a large contributor to lost user productivity" and advised corporates to warn employees that the Internet should not be used for non-work related purposes.
Although similar surveys have not been conducted in India, most companies have a policy governing net-time and net-use in place. For instance, a leading CRM company's Corporate Resource Use Policy clearly states that "the use of the net is a privilege and may be revoked at any time." To quote from the same policy " "the mail id will be used for business mails" and "e-mail should not be used as a form of entertainment or to solicit any private business or cause." Employees of many other companies admit that their respective companies follow similar policies. Rahesh Malhotra (name changed on request) a software engineer in Infosys, says he has not read his company's e-mail policy but only Grade V employees and above have unrestricted access to the Net. "We resent this at times, as it is discriminatory." Similarly, Manikandan of Digital Global admits: "I think the company has a policy, but I am not very certain." I don't want to talk about this anymore."
This is not an isolated response. The techie community known for its clear thinking and clear sightedness displays extremely fuzzy thinking when quizzed about Net policies. The reason is not hard to figure. Net policy of most companies also entails net and phone surveillance. If this writer was working in a software company and writing this article as a letter, it's possible that my services could be terminated the next day. Restricting the use of the net, which in many cases has replaced the unending chai and tiffin breaks characteristic of PSU culture, is not entirely unfair. Faisal, a Wipro employee says, who can access the Net only during certain hours of the day says, "Why not? I do agree with the management. As an employer they have given us facilities. We have no right to abuse them or take them for granted. If I do need the Net for official reasons, I can go to the library and surf ."
However, Net surveillance of employees in the name of improving productivity does not wash. According to a study conducted by the privacy.org, an organisation involved in protecting privacy rights of individuals, up to 14 million US workers are subject to continuous surveillance of their e-mail and Internet use. That means, roughly, one of every three of the 40 million employees using e-mail or the Internet on the job are monitored. Worldwide, the Privacy Foundation claims, 100 million workers, or about 27 per cent, are monitored. The pervasive use of net surveillance software has become a major issue in the US, with the introduction of a bill in the House of Representatives to rein the blatant invasion of privacy by making it incumbent on the management to notify employees that telephone, internet and employee communications are being monitored.
According to K Rajendran, Regional Manager DSL: "Most IT companies have some way of monitoring net activities of employers, but no company will openly or tacitly admit it as they could be held guilty of violating privacy laws." When the Assure team contacted Jessie Paul, Communications Manager, Infosys, to comment on the company's net-time policies and net monitoring her response was: "No we do not do it. I do not want to comment on this." The response contradicts experiences of present and ex-Infosysians.
"On SNTP servers, it is possible for companies to monitor every mail sent out by employees. It is also possible for companies who have their own proxy server or mail server to do it," says K Rajendran. So pervasive is net monitoring in IT companies that the next boom area might well be surveillance software! The Privacy Foundation estimates worldwide sales of employee surveillance software at $140 million per year. High sales growth is being driven by the dropping cost of surveillance software and the inevitability of more and more companies getting on the Net. Popular software surveillance packages are Websense for tracking Internet use and MIME sweeper for scrutinising e-mail. Recently, Websense released its Enterprise Version 4.3 software, which allows IT administrators to set quotas as to how much time employees are allowed to spend surfing the Net for personal purposes each day. After the allotted time -- say 30 minutes per day given to employees to surf entertainment and shopping sites -- access to the Net gets limited to work-related sites. The company, which offers an array of EIM software, says it has half the Fortune 500 companies as clients and lists on its Web site partnerships with companies including Microsoft, Inktomi, Netscape and Cisco Systems.
In effect techies expressly waive any right of privacy in anything they create, store, send or receive on the computer or through the Internet as companies makes use of automated means to monitor use of computer resources. "Companies defence in introducing this Orwellian 1984 situation could range from bandwidth problems to loss in productivity, fears of industrial espionage to horror of headhunters. After having spent time and money on training employees, no hiring manager wants them to fall prey to the headhunter's offer of better placement and higher salaries," posits K Rajendran.
Techies, on the other hand, who spend 12-13 hours a day at the workplace to met their objectives argue that limited net access and policing is grossly unfair. "If I spend 12-13 hours a day in the office and discuss personal problems with my boyfriend over chat or chose to visit porn sites, the company has no right to record such information. Even I know, I must meet my objectives if I am interested in the next raise," opines Chandrashekar, (name changed) a software engineer at PSI Data Systems. Similar concerns were recently voiced by Lewis Maltby, president of National Workrights Institute, a nonprofit group in Princeton: "Employers' efforts to prevent abuse often lead to serious invasions of privacy," said Maltby. "People are not robots. They discuss the weather, sports, their families and many other matters unrelated to their jobs at work." He added that many of those kinds of communications can be "highly personal."
High-handed measures such as blocking sites or monitoring, apart from being an invasion on privacy, cannot be an abiding solution. Stringent net policing has also flooded the market with an array of software products that smart employees can download to access sites barred by the company proxy. Safeweb.com is one such example. Employees can use to browse any other site. And before the employer-employee relationship deteriorates into a thief-cop game, maybe management needs to initiate an open debate on the issue and create awareness by instilling a balance between productivity and entertainment among employees.
(The views expressed here are those of the author. Assureconsulting.com does not necessarily endorse these views.)
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