Office and Internet

Internet has become part and parcel of our daily life and no one can even imagine of getting higher education and professional development without using internet in any form.

However the access to the internet is prohibited or limited only to emails in most of the offices. The management takes the plea that the employees, if they are given access to the internet, misuse the facility of internet and waste their precious time which is devoted to the organization. To this extent, this is true, however like other problems this one can also be solved in a number of ways.

We should understand this issue both from employers and employees' viewpoints. Employers can not compromise office work at all. They can not afford delay or suspension of office work (other than inevitable). They impose restrictions on the usage of internet due to various reasons like wastage of time by employees, misuse of internet which may lead to defamation for organization, etc. Similarly on the other hand, employees require internet due to various reasons.

Employees require internet because they work for 8 to 10 hours a day which is a tiry and boring task for most of the employees. They are not provided any recreationary facilities in most of the offices. Further, many employees are students as well, for instance, trainees of professional institutions and the like. Every such student has not the facility of internet at home and they can not afford the usage of internet at higher prices at internet cafes. They require internet for educational purposes. Although provision of internet to these employees-cum-students is not the responsibility of employers, however providing internet to such employees is a good gesture and this enhances the employees' loyalty for the organization, their motivation and ultimately the productivity of the organization.

As far as the wastage of time and misuse of internet is concerned, the former can be resolved through formulating and effectively implementing code of ethics and the latter can be resolved by effectively monitoring the browsing and other activities on the internet by network administrator and timely reporting any issue to the top management to take appropriate actions.