Can i sack someone for excessive internet usage

scheming_gypsy

Moffyr wrote: »

System security is a huge thing, especially in agencies where data protection and national security or records are concerned. Ive had to do 4 courses so far as an employee and the first thing that is emphasised is ctrl alt delete and log out. you cant secure a room if all the doors are wide open....

i should have mentioned that this was the IT office which was occupied by 5 other IT staff with an internal lock on the door. Somebody from the over zealous IT security team (implemented their own rules to give themselves jobs) knocked on the door, got let in and saw it was unlocked..
After he was suspended the department changed the GP to lock machines after about 1 minute of idle time just so nobody else got suspended if they happened to walk to the printer.

Moffyr

LOL a true BOFH? I have one of those in my place's IT team. We feed him oreos and coffee.

scheming_gypsy

These were terrible. They had a list of policies and rules that had no use apart from to make them look important.
If somebody needed access to a folder they had to submit a request, then we had to email their manager who add to add their name to a spreadsheet and send it back. Then we had to send it to security to authorise it just so we could add somebody to a group. They'd also randomly check jobs to make sure we'd closed them with the information they liked and would re-open them if they weren't happy.

Savvy_Sue

Googlewhacker wrote: »

Go and get some professional advice because there is to much information missing for anyone to give you a good answer.

which is always a good idea if you want to sack anyone for any reason ... if you do it right, all is well. If you slip up in one tiny detail the employer could be on the wrong end of a tribunal decision.

getmore4less

Alecz wrote: »

The sites visited were shopping sites , fashion etc . But it was used most of the day and throughout the day . I checked the browsing history over the last 3 months . Its a disgrace . There is no way that she could have been productive . Some days she is on it continuously all day with 500-600 hits .

I dont see why i should let her stay. Why does the employee have all teh rights .

The question is, is it ok for me to check the person net access in this way. Checking the net there are conflicting opininons regarding privacy at work but is seems an employer can monitor internet access emails etc at work if he thinks something is not right .

The key problem here,

No way to effectivly measure peoples performance and productivity.

I think one approach is to put filtering(times,pc,domains) on the internet connection so things stop working and wait and see who complains and when.

caledonian_princess

It's easy to rack up a large number of hits without actually spending hours browsing, especially on shopping sites which are no doubt full of images. Have you had the logs analysed? Are they actually individual page links or, as has already been suggested, are they ads and pictures linking in to a page? I've just tested something by looking at a shoe shop on "view all", I got 326 hits for one page that took me less than a minute to scan through, following a link through to an individual pair of shoes resulted in a further 36 hits; I left the page open while I spent 20 minutes reading MSE and racked up a further 4 hits as the ads and the news feed on the page updated themselves in the background - I wasn't on that page; I wasn't paying any attention to it all.

Get yourself a proper Acceptable Use policy in place. The simplest is to say that private surfing can take place only during lunch breaks and before/after work and that all personal pages must be closed during working time. You can then use the timestamps on the server logs to monitor usage or, if you have access to IT services, you can do without the timestamps and get the logs analysed properly. Just saying that somebody racked up 500 or so hits in a day doesn't cut it, a couple of pages with automatically refreshing ads etc. left open the background could easily get to that sort of number over the course of a day - they would also give the impression of regular use throughout the working day too.

Reverbe

yvonne13 wrote: »

Don't even get me started on smokers breaks

same here . once worked in a place where they would take several 30 min at a time breaks a day..:mad:

Reverbe

scheming_gypsy wrote: »

Do you have a locked PC policy or have you given her the tools to argue that somebody else must have used her PC while she was somewhere else?

from the sound sof it she spent most of the day on them so you could counterargue what was she doing away from her desk leaving it unlocked for a supposed someone else to access??In the unlikelihood this was the case it seems she wasnt working for her pay then either..:cool:

Reverbe

DVardysShadow wrote: »

I suspect, from the way that the idea of an internet policy seems like water off a duck's back and the other issues you allude to, that she may not have a clear idea of your expectations.

I'd be very concerned if I had employed a person who didnt have the common sense to know I wasnt paying her to pig about on fashion sites:eek:

*Kat*

Reverbe..."What Would Bill Buchanan Do?" haha, which Bill Buchanan are you talking about? The one I'm thinking is completely relevant to this post