3 Simple Ways to Increase Efficiency in the Era of Cyberslacking

The use of the Internet is already visible in almost every business, whether they are large corporations or small home businesses. The network is a comprehensive center for information and knowledge, which is vital for improving your company. However, it appears that most employees use the Internet during working hours to take care of their private business.

Factor which destructively affects the condition of all companies is cyberslacking, which simply means the use of the Internet in private purposes during working hours.

It is mostly visible in areas such as visits to sites devoted to work and hobbies, searching for new information, planning vacations and holidays, shopping or active participation in newsgroups and chat-rooms.

Cyberslacking lowers staff morale and efficiency, resulting in lower business efficiency, and ultimately financial loss U.S. studies show that in 90% of U.S. employees surfing the Web during working hours for private purposes. Respondents admit that 30% of the time is spent on exploring the resources of thematically unrelated to your business.

To show you how damaging for the company cyberslacking can be, I have calculated the amount of monthly losses of the company resulting from the improper use of the Internet by employees.

The results are surprising!

US average hourly wage: 22,57$ (according to US Bureau of Labor Statistics- data from May 2010)

Daily time waste by 1 employee: 1,5 h

Weekly: 1,5 h x 6 days = 9 hours/week

Monthly: 4 weeks x 9 hours/week= 36 hours/month

36 hours x 22,57$= 812,52$/month – these are the losses resulting from wasted time by one employee during a month.

For example, a company which employs about 100 workers loses over 80,000 USD.

Solution?

There are several solutions for the problem of cyberslacking:

1. You can bring in a system for controlling and limiting workers’ access to the Internet and block websites that take the most time. However, this solution brings with it a number of problems:

limiting access to websites cause dissatisfaction among employees, which will be counterproductive-workers will be wasting even more time to find other web sites, for example, similar to the blocked ones

the solution requires time and constant monitoring, you must assign someone to this task, which means additional costs.

timetrackingsoftware

2. You can install spyware, which will help to spy on staff, without their knowledge, and will also block websites. However:

this solution violates the privacy of workers and is illegal,

if employees find out about the use of spyware by their boss, they may report it to the appropriate authorities or bring the case to the courts

spyware are ineffective and the employees very quickly become aware of the implemented changes in the system.

3. The latest solution: time tracking software:

according to specialists it is the best known solution

software controls the programs and websites used by the employee, but unlike spyware applications, it can not detect passwords and private employee data, but collects the statistics which will help to increase work efficiency,

program is not used to block applications and websites, it has to collect data, which are then grouped in time devoted to productive and unproductive activities,

it does not violate the privacy of workers, because they know that the program was installed,

owner of the company has continuous access to data that is updated every 5 minutes

program not only helps to control the time and used applications, but it also helps eliminate the time killers

you can keep the best employees rankings, which are the motivation for them to work more efficiently and spend less time online or playing games

if someone carries a single-company, thanks to such a program, he can check how much time is devoted to work and how much he wasted on time killers.

It is also a great software for someone who wants to cut down on wasting time in the Internet. By using time tracking software a person can know exactly what kind of web sites and programs he wastes most time using.

One of the best time tracking programs is TimeCamp.

The software does not take much space, has a nice interface, and the download and installation takes less than 5 minutes. In addition, it has a free 14-day trial period.

Among other such programs, it is distinguished by the fact that it has the following features:

Generates summary reports for the entire group.
Sends reports to each employee, so he has access to his statistics.
Provides ability to track documents that are opened, so it helps to better protect company secrets.
Categorizes web sites and applications to those that are important and the time killers.
The regular weekly e-mails with a summary for each user.

With these options TimeCamp is good for both business owners who want to increase the efficiency of its employees, as well as for individual users who wish to improve its efficiency and reduce the amount of time wasted on the Internet.