Cyber Loafing: The Unexpected Consequence of Efficiency Hazel Quick The New York Times From the lowest paid employee to the CEO, a commonplace activity being practiced by many workers is harming companies worldwide. Although seemingly harmless, when employees use their companies’ Internet to do non-work related activities during their work hours they are actually stealing from their company and this problem is commonly referred to as cyber loafing. Cyber loafing takes on (a) many different forms in the workplace, (b) is a growing dilemma today, (c) has many harmful impacts, and (d) has different solutions with varying degrees of success. Different Forms Cyber loafing is often easy to overlook because of cyber loafing’s perceived unassuming nature in the offices of many workplaces today. While cyber loafing can take some more sinister forms, such as pornography or gambling, some of the most common cyber loafing practices today include checking personal email, visiting social media sites, playing games, shopping, planning weddings, managing finances, and job searching. 1,2 While each of these seems innocent in small increments, the buildup of frequent usage amounts to more waste than many imagine. For example, in 2012 approximately16 percent of workers in America cyber loafed on Cyber Monday and nearly 50 percent cyber loafed in November and December. Countless paid hours were wasted on personal business. When added together, a seemingly harmless, small distraction built into an enormous loss for companies throughout the United States. 3 A Growing Dilemma With 13 percent of the world as Facebook users, 42 percent of Americans active on Facebook, and 4 billion views on YouTube
Transcript
Cyber Loafing: The Unexpected Consequence of EfficiencyHazel Quick The New York Times
From the lowest paid employee to the CEO, a commonplace activity being practiced by many workers is harming companies worldwide. Although seemingly harmless, when employees use their companies’ Internet to do non-work related activities during their work hours they are actually stealing from their company and this problem is commonly referred to as cyber loafing.
Cyber loafing takes on (a) many different forms in the workplace, (b) is a growing dilemma today, (c) has many harmful impacts, and (d) has different solutions with varying degrees of success.
Different Forms
Cyber loafing is often easy to overlook because of cyber loafing’s perceived unassuming nature in the offices of many workplaces today.
While cyber loafing can take some more sinister forms, such as pornography or gambling, some of the most common cyber loafing practices today include checking personal email, visiting social media sites, playing games, shopping, planning weddings, managing finances, and job searching.1,2 While each of these seems innocent in small increments, the buildup of frequent usage amounts to more waste than many imagine.
For example, in 2012 approximately16 percent of workers in America cyber loafed on Cyber Monday and nearly 50 percent cyber loafed in November and December. Countless paid hours were wasted on personal business. When added together, a seemingly harmless, small distraction built
into an enormous loss for companies throughout the United States. 3
A Growing Dilemma
With 13 percent of the world as Facebook users, 42 percent of Americans active on Facebook, and 4 billion views on YouTube each day, as pictured in Figure 1, social media is a huge part of the American culture today and thus has found a way into the workplace as well. 4
At least 12 billion hours are spent on social media in the United Sates every single day.6 With an average of nearly two hours a day spent cyber loafing per worker and at least 10 percent of workers spending more time cyber loafing than working, a seemingly innocent diversion is becoming a very real problem and contributing more to the 12 billion hours than people would initially believe. 7, 8
Figure 1: Facebook
Figure 1: Approximately 13 percent of people in the world are Facebook users5
The Harmful Impact
Cyber loafing often leads “to reductions in productivity and an inefficient use of network resources, resulting in an uncompetitive organization.” 9
How does the simple practice of cyber loafing create such a loss of efficiency and waste of resources?
With 60 percent of employees visiting social media sties during work, as illustrated in Figure 2, and spending 30 to 65 percent of their time online cyber loafing, “it has been estimated that cyberloafing can cost corporations up to $54 billion annually” or approximately $4,500 per cyber loafing employee and over $650 billion to the United States economy every single year. 10,
11, 12
While cyber
loafing is suspected by some to benefit workers as a quick, rejuvenating to daily routines,” cyber distractions, which come at least every 10.5 minutes, have been shown to take 23 minutes for workers to recover
from and to get back on task. 14, 15, 16 Cyber loafing can even decrease a worker’s “productivity by as much as 40%.”17
Aside from these huge financial and efficiency losses, Cyber loafing can also lead to network security threats such as computer viruses, bandwidth loss, and legal liabilities “on a variety of issues ranging from securities fraud to sexual harassment”18
Solutions
Initially, the Internet in workplaces offered nothing but good results. “The digital revolution,” which was when the Internet became widely used in the business world, “created a promise of greater productivity. And, between 1995 and 2000, labor productivity in the nonfarm business sector” advanced “at nearly twice the rate of the previous 20 years, an acceleration that continued into the first decade of the millennium.” 19
The Internet has helped reduce expenses, shorten product cycle times, increase access to information, improve global communication, and helped to market services and products more effectively. 20
However, once the “solution” to all efficiency problems, the Internet, became a standard tool in the business world, productivity once again dipped back down and the “efficiency tool” has now turned and become a problem of inefficiency—now employers must find a solution to the solution.
Employers are constantly trying to fix the problem of cyber-loafing in their businesses. But, with an abundance of options to choose from, each with different levels of success, employers can struggle with determining which method is most appropriate.
Figure 2: 6 out of 10 employees visit social media sites13
Picture Source: Hazel E. Quick
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Some of the different approaches used include (a) policies, (b) punishments, (c) a deterrence approach, and (d) an open office arrangement.
Policies
Implementing acceptable usage policies, commonly known as AUPs for Internet usage in an office environment is a step that many companies take. 21 AUPs in an office bring awareness to employees of what is considered inappropriate Internet usage while at work. Sometimes employees are not fully aware of the inappropriateness of their actions until they are explicitly pointed out. As such, AUPs can be effective against cyber loafing.
Punishments
Employing punishments for deviant actions in the workplace is another common and effective approach. Facing a punishment, especially a threat to be fired, decreases the likeliness workers will cyber loaf. 22
However, verbal reprimands, as pictured in Figure 3 below, are less effective with cyber loafing activities that a worker may view as acceptable, such as personal emails and social media usage. In these cases, more severe punishments work the best. 23
Deterrence Approach
The deterrence approach constitutes a combination of APUs and Internet monitoring.25 One of the most effective methods, the deterrence approach does not involve explicitly blocking sites, which can often results in employee strife and negative affects on employee morale. However, the use of monitoring can create issues with privacy. 26
Open Office Arrangement
Another method is an open office arrangement. An open office arrangement means all the computer screens in an office are clearly visible to everyone or most people there—which makes being off-task unnoticed very hard.27
So, while a specific policy or action is not taken notably, an open office arrangement is a way to successfully equalize all employees in a workplace and not single out individuals.
Other methods, like solely implementing an Internet monitoring program or blocking sites are not as effective when they stand alone. 29 But, no single method can be applied perfectly. Companies must take into consideration many different aspects as they choose which approaches work best for their situation.
To find the most appropriate solution, an employee can take some helpful tips into consideration as they choose a suitable method in their business.
One thing that can affect a decision is how an employee views each method of cyber loafing. A worker’s view will affect their response to certain implemented solutions. For instance, older males perceive social
Figure 3: Verbal Reprimand
Figure 3: Verbal reprimands from employers are not the most effective for deterring cyber loafing24
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media as abusive but are much more likely to manage their finances at work than their younger counterparts. 30 Because they do not view managing finances as inappropriate in a work setting, they will need harsher consequences to be more willing to comply.
Employees should also note that consistency is vital, when an employee knows someone has been punished as promised, they are more likely to comply with the policies.31
With more knowledge, employers can be more successful when they choose a method to reduce cyber loafing.
Although seemingly harmless and often accepted, cyber loafing has the potential to seriously damage and inhibit the growth of companies and is quickly arising as a problem in the business world today. Although no simple, perfect solution exists today, a few options are available to combat the problem of cyber loafing, such as the use of policies, punishments, a deterrence approach, and an open office arrangement. With a variety of solutions to choose from, the next step is for employers to take action and implement a program to stop cyber loafing in their business.
Endnotes
1. Joseph C. Ugrin, J. Michael Pearson. “The effects of sanctions and stigmas on cyberloafing.” Computers in Human Behavior. May 2013. 813.
2. Jada A. Graves. "The Top Cyberloafing Activities of a Distracted Office Worker." U.S.News & World Report, March 21, 2013. http://search.proquest.com/docview/1346595709?accountid=4488.
3. Ibid.
4. “Social Media at Work.” LearnStuff. October 26, 2012. http://www.learnstuff.com/social-media-at-work/
5. Ibid.
6. Ibid.
7. Benjamín Liberman et. al. “Employee job attitudes and organizational characteristics as predictors of cyberloafing.” Computers in Human Behavior. November 2011. 2192. http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S074756321100121X
8. “Social Media at Work.” LearnStuff. October 26, 2012. http://www.learnstuff.com/social-media-at-work/
9. Benjamín Liberman et. al. “Employee job attitudes and organizational characteristics as predictors of cyberloafing.” Computers in Human Behavior. November 2011. 2192. http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S074756321100121X
10. “Social Media at Work.” LearnStuff. October 26, 2012. http://www.learnstuff.com/social-media-at-work/
11. Benjamín Liberman et. al. “Employee job attitudes and organizational characteristics as predictors of cyberloafing.” Computers in Human Behavior. November 2011. 2192. http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S074756321100121X
12. “Social Media at Work.” LearnStuff. October 26, 2012. http://www.learnstuff.com/social-media-at-work/
13. Ibid.
14. Isaac Stanley-Becker. “Loaf or Labor? Technologies that empower us may also let us slack off.” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. July 31, 2014. http://www.post-gazette.com/local/south/2014/07/31/Loaf-or-labor-Technologies-that-empower-us-also-let-us-slack-off-Pittsburgh/stories/201407310004
15. Joseph C. Ugrin, J. Michael Pearson. “The effects of sanctions and stigmas on cyberloafing.” Computers in Human Behavior. May 2013. 812.
16. “Social Media at Work.” LearnStuff. October 26, 2012. http://www.learnstuff.com/social-media-at-work/
17. Benjamín Liberman et. al. “Employee job attitudes and organizational characteristics as predictors of cyberloafing.” Computers in Human Behavior. November 2011. 2192. http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S074756321100121X
18. Jessica Vitak, Julia Crouse, Robert LaRose. “Personal Internet use at work: Understanding cyberslacking.” Computers in Human Behavior. September 2011. 1751. http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0747563211000604
19. Isaac Stanley-Becker. “Loaf or Labor? Technologies that empower us may also let us slack off.” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. July 31, 2014. http://www.post-
20. Benjamín Liberman et. al. “Employee job attitudes and organizational characteristics as predictors of cyberloafing.” Computers in Human Behavior. November 2011. 2192. http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S074756321100121X
21. Joseph C. Ugrin, J. Michael Pearson. “The effects of sanctions and stigmas on cyberloafing.” Computers in Human Behavior. May 2013. 812.
22. Ibid, 812.
23. Ibid, 817-818.
24. Ibid, 814.
25. The Talent Project Blog. “Six in 10 Employees are seeking In-Roads to New Lines of Work.” SAP Business Innovation. July 24, 2013.
26. Joseph C. Ugrin, J. Michael Pearson. “The effects of sanctions and stigmas on cyberloafing.” Computers in Human Behavior. May 2013. 817.
27. Ibid, 818.
28. “10 Statements That Could Ruin Your Relationship With Your boss, And Your Career.” Ventures. December 28, 2014. http://www.ventures-africa.com/2014/12/10-statements-that-could-ruin-your-relationship-with-your-boss-and-your-career/
29. Isaac Stanley-Becker. “Loaf or Labor? Technologies that empower us may also let us slack off.” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. July 31, 2014. http://www.post-gazette.com/local/south/2014/07/31/Loaf-or-labor-Technologies-that-empower-us-also-let-us-slack-off-Pittsburgh/stories/201407310004
30. Joseph C. Ugrin, J. Michael Pearson. “The effects of sanctions and stigmas on cyberloafing.” Computers in Human Behavior. May 2013. 818.
