#employeeinternetusage

Every IT company has a wide range of policies and regulations, which helps them with the management of the workforce. But most of the time, such policies just become a few words on a piece of paper in the form of documents.

There are many reasons for a company to follow these regulations, implementing which they can boost productivity and increase workplace employee engagement.

According to the latest survey, we found that almost 50% of employees do vaguely care about their duties regarding the Internet usage policy of their firm. In the same survey with more than 2.2 millions of employees, it is also concluded that managers are also hazy about what should be expected from employees.

In an organization, it’s a responsibility of the management to not forcibly impose anything on employees. And make sure to be transparent and justifiable with your regulations.

In this article, we are going to study about the importance of Internet usage policy. By executing such rules in your organization, you can restrict the access usage of the Internet, which is costing you extra time, effort, and money.

WHY DO YOU NEED THE INTERNET USAGE POLICY IN YOUR ORGANISATION?

Being an employer, you should understand that the policy of your company does restrict some actions of employees, and it can’t be sugar-coated. There is no need for you to hide the fact that you are concerned about insider frauds and work time theft in your organization. And eventually, your employees will also understand these things.

Especially when we talk about Internet usage in the workplace premises, employers have every authority to check the internet activities of their employees on workplace devices. With such a policy, employees can also understand their limitations and responsibilities towards the organization so that they can work more diligently for the sake of business growth.

Here we are showing you some of the reasons why you need Internet Usage Policy in your organization.

TO FIND CYBERSLACKERS:

It is often seen that there are some cyberslackers in the organization who use the company’s resources like computers and the internet for personal usage during working hours. Obviously, they are stealing the business hours for their own interest. However, if you have a strong Internet usage policy in your firm, you can ensure that your employees are not slacking off during business hours.

TO ENHANCE INSIDER CYBERSECURITY:

Of all the threats in the cyberworld, today, most of the companies pay special care to avoid insider threats. According to survey stats, we found 90% of the organizations feel at least “slightly vulnerable” against insider threats. Research shows the data breach can cause an average of $8.76 million in  terms of damage per year. By having a good Internet usage policy, you can keep track of insider threats and enhance cybersecurity in your workplace.

ALSO READ

How To Protect Your Data From Insider Threats?

TO REDUCE BANDWIDTH HOGGING:

Do you find your staff streaming videos using workplace WiFi? Even if they are doing so in their break time, their actions might be actually hogging the Internet bandwidth, and it can also interrupt the other online business activities.

To deal with this issue, you can implement the Internet usage monitoring policy in your workplace. In fact, studies have shown that when employees know that their internet usage is getting monitored, they try to avoid using the Internet for non-work-related stuff. That way, you can not only increase the speed of production rate but also reduce the chances of malware entry in your network.

TO MANAGE WORKFORCE:

Nowadays, you can make use of some of the best employee monitoring software to manage your workforce. Indeed, in the present scenario, to prevent the spread of COVID 19, companies are allowing their employees to work remotely. And to manage a remote workforce, what you need is an online monitoring system, which can remotely track the computer activities (work) of employees.

TO PREVENT MISBEHAVIOR:

By adopting Internet usage monitoring policy, you can ensure the work environment safety by monitoring the internal communication to prevent misbehavior and cyberbullying. Management can use behavior protocol in the workplace to govern acceptable usage of the Internet so that nobody in your organization gets offended.

HOW TO CREATE AN EFFECTIVE INTERNET USAGE POLICY IN YOUR ORGANIZATION?

There you might already have some fundamental rules and regulations in your organization. In case you need to make sure that your staff is clear about the conduct that is banned while using the property of the organization. For creating an effective Internet usage policy, you should keep these things in mind and make sure to mention the forbidden actions like data theft, misuse of IT property, cyberbullying, revealing secret business information, and so on.

In fact, you can also ban the usage of social media and other non-work-related sites, which could be the means of sharing certain information about the company. And make sure to forbid video streaming using the official Internet that can hog the bandwidth and reduce the network speed in your workspace.

Here we have mentioned some of the things which you should include in the Internet usage policy of your company.

THE POLICY SHOULD REFLECT VALUES & PURPOSE:

Teamwork is essential for the success of every business. Hence it becomes important for you and your workforce to value the culture of teamwork. In the team, employees should help each other instead of accusing and rebuking others for their mistakes.

And this will help you to create a happy environment in your workplace, and it would also make your employees happy and engaged in their work.

While restricting several internet activities of employees, make sure that you are giving enough value to your workforce.

For example, if someone is contacting their family for an important matter, the company shouldn’t restrict them to get in touch with their family members.

THE POLICY SHOULD BE FLEXIBLE:

Have you been thinking of bounding your employees with strict rules for Internet usage? There is no need for that. In fact, too much of unnecessary restriction will only create an unhealthy work environment.

It seems unreasonable to expect your employees to use the internet for work purposes only. There can be situations when they might need to use the internet for their personal usage also. It’s better to be a bit flexible with the policy while you can also draw the bottom line, so no-one takes extra advantage of the flexibility.

THE POLICY SHOULD CREATE FREEDOM:

Although Internet usage policy is to restrain the activities of employees. Still, you can allow flexibility to build trust with your employees. Especially when your employees are working diligently and using the internet to improve their skills and knowledge. Then you can allow them to access the workplace Internet freely so that they can work more efficiently.

THE POLICY SHOULD REFLECT THE EMPLOYEES:

Every employee is different, and they have their own approach to deal with the task in front of them. For example, some people focus on a single task to complete it, on the other hand, there are also some people who can work on several tasks without getting distracted. There might be some people who can’t be able to sit in a place for a long time, and they can work more efficiently after taking a break in between. So you need to make sure that your Internet usage policy doesn’t interrupt the work schedule of such employees.

IMPLEMENTATION OF INTERNET USAGE POLICY

Now you have included all the modifications in your policy and are ready to implement it for your company. When people join your firm, they should be explained about these policies. Make sure to give attention to every particular information of your policy apart from other paperwork. Don’t degrade its importance, by just putting in a stack of papers.

Make your employees understand the importance of Internet monitoring and how it can empower them with better productivity. Some companies also go all-out with the whole training session explaining the different policies of their organization.

However, to implement that, you also need to monitor the internet usage and online activities of employees. While you can use EmpMonitor software using which you can track and restrict the unproductive usage of the Internet bandwidth in your firm.

ABOUT EMPMONITOR:

EmpMonitor is a software that lets you track the online computer activities of your employees. It has amazing features using which you can remotely manage the work productivity in your company.

Here we have shown some of the amazing features of EmpMonitor that can help you to empower your business.

It shows you the employees’ web browsing history record, so you can know whether they are using the internet for their work, or using the company’s Wifi to stream videos, or using social media during work hours.

EmpMonitor software works in the background, and it doesn’t appear on the program and task manager, so you can say it is invisible to the inside people having malicious intentions to leak or breach important business data of your company.

It also lets you check the website and apps that your employees are using in their work. That way, you can also learn about tools and web applications using which you can increase productivity in your business.

It also allows you to check what your employees are typing on their computers so that you can learn about internal communication between employees. That way, you can also ensure to prevent workplace harassment or misbehavior and create a healthy work environment in your firm.

If your employees are hardworking and capable enough to take responsibilities, then you can promote them to the manager or team leader position with some freedom to analyze and check the work of their other team members.

EmpMonitor also shows you the time when your employees are working online, or when they are being idle during production hours. With its online monitoring features, you can remotely monitor the productivity of employees from anywhere around the world.

These are some of the best features of EmpMonitor software, which can help you to track the online computer activities of your employees so you can implement effective Internet Usage Policy in your organization.

WRAPPING WORDS:

In the end, I would say that you need to have some policy in your firm, which can help you to restrict the unnecessary usage of Internet bandwidth in your workplace. While it is also a perfect opportunity for you to demonstrate your commitment to the growth of business and employees both. So, be proactive from the front and lead your business to achieve success.

However, remember that you must tell your employees about what are your expectations from them. Make them know that your policy is not only for the growth of the business, but it also favors the growth of employees.

So, are you ready to implement Internet usage policy in your company?

If yes, then what’s your preparation? In case, you have any queries, you can share them with us in the comments given below. We would be happy to help you out.

ALSO READ:

7 Workplace Monitoring Laws Of Different Countries: Legal Restrictions & Best Practices

Are you even stuck in finding ways on how to track employee internet usage?

Since every company has implemented the "work from home" policy, it has become a lot more challenging for them to monitor their employee's internet activities. 

Because of such a scenario, you may find it difficult to manage your remote teams properly. And thus, you will end up having questions like:

Are the employees really working or just wasting their time by watching funny videos?

Are they completing their task on time, or skipping it for the next day?

To help you out, we have come up with a complete guide on why and how to monitor employee internet usage to maintain a smooth workflow among the remote teams. 

Table of contents : 

Why Should You Monitor Employee Internet Usage?

What Are The Benefits Of Employee Monitoring?

Tips To Track Employee Internet Usage.

Now, what are we waiting for? Let's get into the article right away! 

Why Should You Monitor Employee Internet Usage?

Basically, monitoring helps you know how well remote employees are working. And according to the recent study, most of the employees waste their time during the working hours when they get to know that their bosses are not watching them. 

Therefore, here an Employee internet monitoring tool can help them a lot to track their employee internet usage with great ease. It will help you know which of your employees are working sincerely and who are spending their time shopping online, or chatting on social media. 

What Are The Benefits Of Employee Monitoring?

Here, we will be discussing the key benefits of employee monitoring!

Improved Productivity

The moment remote employees will know that they are being monitored by their bosses every second, they are going to be a lot more sincere towards their work. Without wasting any time, they will complete their task and will provide more attention to the company's success. 

Along with it, productivity monitoring software even helps to reduce online distractions. It can be a helping hand in stopping your employees from entering into any unproductive sites during the working hour. Thus, it pushes employees to spend their time on only productive sites. 

More Accountability

A remote employee monitoring software will help you know where your employees are utilizing most of their time during working hours. In short, it will provide you with powerful insights such as:

If they are entering into any non-work-related websites.   

You can even know who is wasting their time by browsing on different social media platforms instead of concentrating on their work.

Actually how many hours are they working!

You can even check the order of tasks they have attempted.

Most importantly, you will have an idea of which of the employees take long or too many breaks. Ultimately, you can find out who takes more time to complete a given task.

In such a way, there will be a clear sense of accountability in the workplace. 

Lessens The Security Risks

Monitoring the activities of your remote employees can even prevent the company from different security risks.  

Wondering how? 

Well, when the employees will know that you are monitoring them, they will not get involved in accessing unsafe sites that might violate your company's policies. Employee Monitoring tool comes with prominent data security solutions! 

Tips To Track Employee Internet Usage

Well, there are not many tips to share! Just a few ones and you are all set to go.

Restrict Your Employees From Visiting Any Of The Unwanted Sites

Another excellent way to make your employees more productive is by banning social media sites like YouTube and Facebook. Though doing all these things is not enough! Some of the employees might waste their time on various unauthorized sites. So, all you can do is to monitor their activities correctly and then restrict every site that bothers the on-going work. 

Track Your Employee's Browsing Activity

Get your hands on the browsing activities of your employees and make a point of watching the traffic created within the office network. Use the firewall feature, which will provide details of shared data between your employees via the official server.

Divide The Connectivity Of Wireless Router

You can connect your office WiFi network to other wireless routers that are closely monitoring all the places which have been browsed by the employee.

All you need to do is set up the authentication by keying on the search bar of your default office browser in your wireless router's IP address. After the basic setup process gets completed, the wireless router will provide you information about all the online activities of your employees once you press the 'Logs' button.

Top 04 Employee Monitoring Software To Keep An Eye On Employee Internet Usage Efficiently

What more will you need? Well, to perform employee monitoring in the best manner, you will have to find the perfect Employee Tracking Software that can help you monitor employee's internet usage efficiently. Given below are the list of top 04 Employee Monitoring Software of 2020:

EmpMonitor

TimeDoctor

Veriato

ActivTrak

Wrapping it up!

Employee monitoring is not rocket science, for which you will have to do thousands of research! All you need is a proper monitoring tool that can help you get all the detailed information about your employee's computer activities. Still, some of the companies fail to understand the importance of monitoring employee internet usage. Hopefully, this article can help them clear all their doubts on why and how to monitor employee internet usage. 

Also, Watch This Video About EmpMonitor - Best Employee Monitoring Software

Today employee internet monitoring has become quite essential for every business company around the globe. Tracking the online activities of employees, companies could learn about their internet usage. Besides the work, employees may also indulge in unproductive activities and use the workplace internet for entertainment or shopping purposes. That could also be the cause of excessive bandwidth usage, which is slowing down the work progress of your company. While monitoring employees' internet usage, you can learn about the unproductive internet usage of employees. And can also come with policies to restrict the unproductive sites for reducing the bandwidth usage.

Besides that, there are many other reasons why you should monitor employees' internet usage in your workplace. Here I have shown some of them:

Misuse Of Official Property:

In the workplace, the use of the internet and other office devices are allowed only for official work. In case someone is using the company's property for personal reasons. You can say that it is a misuse of the company's property. The company is paying for the bandwidth for the work purpose only. But when employees use the official internet to watch videos or using other unproductive applications, it can slow down the internet speed required for the work process. Employee internet monitoring can help you learn about the traffic moves, which you can restrict to improve the work engagement of employees.

Employees Can Work Diligently:

Telling your employees that you are monitoring their online activities can't be a bad thing. As it can also help you to encourage your employees to work more diligently. Being monitored may help you to create a sense of accountability in your workforce. And eventually, you will find that your employees are being responsible enough to handle tasks and complete them before deadlines.

Prevent Insider Threats:

Internet monitoring helps you to achieve having control over employees' online activities. So that you can track any dubious activities happening in your organization. That way, you can control things like trading business secrets and leaking confidential business data. And you can also uproot such things from your workplace.

EmpMonitor gives you the ability to track the online browsing activities of your employees. Moreover, it has top-class monitoring features like auto screenshot and keystrokes logger, that can help you to track any anonymous activities, and it can readily catch any insider breaching issues in your organization.

Optimize Bandwidth Usage:

The cost of consuming digital resources can be very expensive. While companies couldn't afford to pay for the extra bandwidth usage, they need to restrict access to the unproductive sites in the workplace. Monitoring employees' online activities, employers can check whether their employees are using the internet for their work. Or they are using the internet for personal reasons.

Using the EmpMonitor software, employee management tools, employers can not only trace browsing history from employees' computers. But it also has a firewall setup to restrict access to anonymous sites that are not useful for the business.

Monitoring Compliance:

Employee internet monitoring also serves to be a powerful tool to ensure the ethics and compliance process in the workplace. It can help employers to track any harassment or illegal activities in their organization. By implementing employee internet monitoring solutions, it becomes feasible for companies to introduce disciplinary measures to restrain any kind of dishonest and unfair activities in the workplace.

Remote Workplace Management:

The best thing about online technology is that it lets you connect to your workplace, even when you are farthest apart from your workplace. Moreover, if you are traveling away from your workplace, you can still use online monitoring solutions to manage the work process remotely. Companies are also seeking remote monitoring solutions like EmpMonitor, which makes the workforce management tasks easier for their managers.

Wrapping Words:

Isn’t internet monitoring seems essential for every business? Today industries are seeking the best employee internet monitoring softwares and want to implement it in their business. And so far, it has been playing a crucial role in improving work efficiency and productivity. Thanks to this, it has become easier for organizations to manage their workforce remotely. With so many benefits, you can really say that internet monitoring has become somewhat essential for every business.

So, what are your thoughts? Are you ready to monitor employees’ online activities in your workplace? If you still have any doubts, please share them with us in the comments section.

Also, Watch This Video On How To Measure Productivity Of Employees?