What You Need to Know About Social Media’s Impact on Cybersecurity and Employee Productivity

Are you a business owner concerned about employees wasting time online? Do you feel like you’re losing workplace productivity through unfettered social media and internet access?

Why Employee Internet Usage Matters

It’s not uncommon for employees to spend a bit of time throughout their workday on relatively harmless activities, such as shopping online, checking sports scores, or posting an update on Facebook. Research has even shown that these “micro-breaks” throughout the day actually improve productivity.

That’s the mundane possibility — employees wasting a few minutes here and there on eBay or YouTube.

Unfortunately, employers are learning the hard way that some people take it too far. And the risk goes beyond wasted time — employee use or abuse of a company’s Internet system can lead to significant liability if not monitored.

For example, one business owner recalls the time when the police showed up and arrested one of their staff for soliciting a minor online. The employee had been doing this using the office network and on company time. Naturally, they were left with quite a PR nightmare to deal with.

Stories like this are not exactly few and far between, either.

As we said, micro-breaks can be a good thing. Sadly, social media sites like Instagram and Facebook are addictive and some people have a very hard time leaving them at all. If your employees are always a click away from these so-called “time vampires”, they won’t be nearly as productive at work as they should be.

How To Solve This Problem

You can start protecting your company with two simple steps:

The first is fairly straightforward; issue a written company policy that details what employees can and can’t do with company resources or during company hours. Have employees read and agree to the terms.

Next, you’ll want to have a content filtering system in place that will actively enforce your usage policy. Such solutions automatically “police” your company e-mail and Internet usage, blocking sites and content you don’t want your employees to access without hindering their ability to work online.

How To: Stop Your Employees from Wasting Time Online…Right Away!

If you want to know for sure how much time your employees are spending on non-work related surfing and what web sites they are accessing, call us for a free trial of our content filtering software. At no cost, we’ll install our monitoring software for a week and then provide you with an accurate report of what your employees are doing on the company network.

In addition, our FREE Productivity Assessment will reveal:

• What web sites employees visit and how much time they spend on them
• If your firewall, anti-virus, and other security settings are properly set up to protect you from today’s cyberattacks
• How you can put simple, automated tools in place to protect your company’s e-mail and Internet connection, reducing your risk of ransomware attack by up to 85%

Or to learn more about how we can help your business, contact the Texas IT experts at NCC.