Yet Another Cyberslacking Costs Money Study
from the heard-this-one-before dept
I knew it had to be there, but it was hidden all the way down at the bottom of this article about a new study saying “cyberslacking” costs companies money. At the very end of the article, you find out that the study was (of course) paid for by a company selling filtering and monitoring software. We’ve had this discussion before, but the studies keep coming. If employees get their work done, and aren’t in a position where they’re billing hourly, these “lost profits” studies are completely useless. These days, when employees are expected to be “on call” 24 hours a day, with their internet connections and blackberries, there’s nothing wrong if they spend a little time each day buying books or checking the news online. In fact, little breaks like these can help refresh the minds of employees and keep them from getting burnt out. It can also make them more productive when they are focused on work. All of these studies that seem to assume that any non-work specific task represents lost profits are simply wrong. Every one of them seems to be designed to sell monitoring software to companies.
