Las Vegas Business Press :: News : Bad Behavior

Bad Behavior

Wasting time or tending to personal business at work is a no-no, but how do you stop it?

By Danek S. Kaus

John is making progress planning the family ski trip. He's using the Internet to check out amenities at different lodges in Lake Tahoe and to get the best rate on air travel.

The problem is, he's at work, using the company computer for personal business.

And he's not the only one doing this.

Craig Kapper
Exec at Robert Half International says employee time-wasting may rise during holidays

Destiny Schwurack
Human resources official says Desert Perinatal staff told personal PC use can draw viruses

Scott Abbott
Law firm managing partner advocates employee handbooks

In a survey conducted by the executive staffing service Robert Half International Inc., workers were asked how much time each day they believed they spent doing personal tasks at the office. The mean response was 36 minutes, while executives believed that employees spent 46 minutes.

These "bad behaviors" can come in the form of overextending break times, returning late from breaks and lunch, talking on cell phones and text messaging, sending personal e-mails or surfing the World Wide Web.

Assuming that the employee response is the more accurate measure, that means three hours each week are nonproductive. Multiply that times the number of employees in the organization, and the cumulative loss of productivity can be dramatic -- and costly.

Craig Kapper, regional vice president of Robert Half International Inc. in Las Vegas, said studies suggest that the amount of wasted time may double or triple during the holiday season as people shop online and plan activities.

"These things take time from delivery of projects and achieving goals on a timely basis," Kapper said. "It is a spiraling thing, people become less productive, so a department becomes less productive."

He believes the first step to solving this problem is to create awareness among the employees, who may not perceive how much time they are wasting. Kapper suggests sitting down with time abusers and talking with them about how their actions are affecting the bottom line.

"A good honest dialogue is best," he said.

Another step is to communicate the company policy on such behaviors.

One possible solution is to create flexible work schedules, which let people tend to the necessities of daily life, Kapper said.

Joan Burge, founder and chief executive officer of Office Dynamics in Las Vegas and author of the books "Real World Communication Strategies that Work" and "Inner Circle Assistant," said the biggest abuse of time comes from e-mailing and using the Internet.

"You can see the employees at their desks on the computers, but deep down, you don't really know what they're doing," Burge said.

She believes that the Internet has ratcheted up employee goofing off.

"When you're sitting at your desk and a family member e-mails you, it's too tempting to open it," Burge said.

She has firsthand knowledge of the situation. One day she walked in on a former assistant who was shopping for a wedding dress online.

"I probably should have said something at the moment, but I was a little stunned and surprised," Burge said. "I shouldn't have been surprised because employers know that employees do personal things on job time. But there's a fine line between abusing and not abusing that privilege."

She didn't make an issue of it because the assistant always got her work done.

Correcting the situation starts with establishing policies of what is and is not acceptable behavior.

Employers can find free forms on the Internet that they can have employees sign that state their understanding of company computer-use policies.

Burge believes some give and take on these matters is better in the long run. For example, she said, companies could establish times, perhaps during breaks, when people could use company computers to do personal things.

Burge also suggest putting reminders in company newsletters and holding periodic meetings on the subject.

"It's not that people mean to be abusive," she said. "They get busy and don't realize what they're doing sometimes."

Burge said a survey in USA Today found that 76 percent of employers monitor e-mail and Internet activity on employee computers.

"They have every right to do so because they own (the computers)," she said.

Burge said the study found that 26 percent of employers have fired workers for forwarding inappropriate material or confidential company information.

"Sometimes it's not intended. It just shows that people are not paying attention," she said.

There is another benefit to setting specific times to allow employees to attend to personal business. Switching from work to personal tasks intermittently eats into productivity in another way, said Dave Crenshaw, a time management expert and author of "The Myth of Multitasking."

"Whenever you switch your attention from one task to another you incur a switching cost, the recovery time," he said. "If I'm switching from doing business e-mail to doing personal shopping to fantasy football, pretty soon I'm not getting anything done. The loss of productivity is greater than just the time spent on the (nonwork) activity."

If someone spends 12 minutes off, it may take him four minutes to get back up to speed. If he does that five times a day, the time lost in transition becomes 20 minutes, on top of the 60 minutes spent on nonwork activities, Crenshaw said.

Destiny Schwurack, human resources manager for Desert Perinatal Associates, said her company has few behavior problems with its approximately 90-person staff.

"We set our expectations from Day One and communicate them on a regular basis so they don't forget," she said.

One issue the company communicates is that using company computers for personal use can lead to getting a virus that could crash the server.

"If you tell people why you don't want them to do something, they are less likely to use the company computer for personal use and talk on their cell phone when they are supposed to be working," Schwurack said. "If you tell people that you need them at the office because of XYZ, they are less likely to call in for a day off."

Her company has two computers in the break room for personal use.

Attorney Scott Abbott, managing partner of Kamer Zucker Abbott, recommends having a comprehensive employee handbook.

"It should have a number of standards and/or policies so people know what is expected of them," he said.

Among other things, the handbook should address use of Internet and cell phones. It should also convey that there should be no expectation of privacy and that the employer has the right to monitor workers, Abbott said.

Infractions should be dealt with according to both the frequency and severity of the offenses.

"If someone is taking excessive breaks or returning late from them, it probably warrants some kind of disciplinary action, depending on a number of factors, such as how long they have been doing it and what the rest of their work record looks like. If it's a first offense, you might just counsel them verbally," Abbott said. "You should also take into account the seriousness of the infraction. Someone who is 10 minutes late will usually not receive the kind of discipline as someone who sent an offensive joke by e-mail."

Once a company considers or decides to terminate someone, it is important for that company to document infractions, Abbott said.

"If you document, for the most part, you're on firm ground," Abbott said. "In this day and age, there is no guarantee there won't be legal action, but it puts the employer on much more defensible ground."

Marilyn Rebman, vice president of Human Resources for ManagedPay, a payroll, employee benefits and human resources company, said there are three keys to reducing bad behavior: "Employee handbook, employee handbook, employee handbook."

She believes handbooks are effective communication tools that should be updated regularly because the laws change.

She advocates progressive discipline for problem employees. Discipline may start with a warning and end with termination. But it may be critical to be strategic before undertaking that last step to avoid having to pay for unemployment compensation.

"If you can prove someone has bad attendance, but the last event was when they were in the hospital, you may not want to fire them," Rebman said. "There are a lot of issues. If you don't have adequate training, you are doing yourself a disservice. In a world where so many people are litigious, you need to get the basics of HR down."

Katherine Renner, human resources manager for AdvanStaff Inc., suggests finding creative ways to decrease bad behavior.

"Maybe you could create incentives (for good behavior)," she said.

Thomas Martin, president of Martin Investigative Service, in Newport Beach, Calif., was recently in Las Vegas working for a local company. He suggests addressing some of these issues more directly.

Martin says employers can have blocks put on telephones to reduce personal calls. For example, phones can call only specific area codes.

If being online is part of the job, the information technology person can give people a limited amount of time on any site they visit and block certain types of sites.

"No gambling sites. No looking for lost love sites," Martin said.

He also suggests using spyware to track employee Internet use.

"It gets tricky. It may involve invasion of privacy, but in the workplace it's generally accepted," Martin said. "You can tell people that you're putting it on. Tell them, 'We know every click you make.' "

Martin said that if you follow these suggestions, "You can stop these problems in 10 minutes."

Danek S. Kaus is a California-based freelance business writer. Send questions or comments to mward@lvbusinesspress.com.

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