When asked about their company’s policies for monitoring employees, more than one third of business owners say that they do not screen employee computer use in any way.
An Inc.com poll, which surveyed readers between September 22 through October 6 and received 305 respondents, found that 25 percent of companies blocked “unproductive” sites like YouTube, Twitter, and Facebook, while 19 percent monitored company email, but only when they suspected a problem; 16 percent tracked all employee computer usage.
In comparison, a 2007 survey by the American Management Association, which included businesses of all sizes, found that 66 percent of employers monitored Internet connections and 43 percent monitored email.
“I would tend to think if you have a company of 20 people or less, you already know what’s going on” with your employees, says Elizabeth Charnock, CEO of Cataphora, a Redwood City, California-based company that provides business software to collect data on employees.
Photo by hisks.