The Awareness Advisor

Addressing workplace productivity on a national level, npr.org recently reported that almost 25% of employee terminations are due to the misuse of the Internet. Earlier this year using the Internet was also legally defined as the equivalent of using the phone or reading the newspaper at work, a distinction that was handed down by an administrative law judge.

And, at the same time, Internet use in the workplace has been legally defined as not falling under privacy laws, meaning that what you download on company time can be used to fire you, whether it's for lagging workplace productivity, or in some cases, criminal conduct. After all, in a 2006 survey of more than 400 companies, 15% had fought a lawsuit that stemmed from improper Internet use in the workplace (The perfect example must be the man arrested this year in a child porn sting who was using his office computer to store extensive criminal data).

What does this mean to employers? It means that there have been legal definitions put in place to limit the loss of workplace productivity and growing liability when careless workers spend their time cruisin' the net.

Awareness Tech’s WebWatcher was designed just for this purpose. WebWatcher offers everything that computer monitoring software should have, including website blocking to limit workplace exposure to inappropriate materials, email recording, chat recording, and more. Better yet, WebWatcher is the only computer monitoring software system that allows employers and managers to check on Internet use from a remote location.

Wasting time on the Internet costs American businesses billions a year, which is a sad fact when you know that simply by monitoring employee computer use, companies could stem the tide and put themselves on the right track toward maximum workplace productivity.