BIOS: Technology Means Business

Websense has announced the first instalment of Employee survey results of its seventh annual Web@Work study, conducted by Harris Interactive.

From March 15 to March 24, 2006, 351 US IT decision-makers who work for organisations with at least 100 employees, at least 1 per cent of whom have Internet access, were interviewed online, and from March 16 to April 4, 2006, 500 US employees ages 18 and older who have Internet access at work and who work for organisations with at least 100 employees were surveyed over the telephone on Web and software application usage in their workplace.

The 2006 Web@Work Employee survey reveals that men are more likely than women to engage in personal Web surfing at work. Almost two-thirds (65 per cent) of men who access the Internet from work admitted to accessing non work-related websites during work hours versus 58 per cent of women.

Similarly, men are more likely to spend more time on the Internet at work for both work-related and non work-related tasks than women do. For example, men admit to spending 11.6 hours on average per week on work-related Web sites and 2.3 hours per week on non-work related Web sites. In comparison, women admit to surfing 9.0 hours on average on work-related and personal sites and admit to spending only 1.5 hours per week on non work-related sites only.

Men and women also vary on the types of non work-related websites they visit in the workplace. For example, men are substantially more likely than women to visit non work-related sites such as weather, sports, investment/stock, and blogs - men are 1.15 times more likely than women to visit weather sites (81 per cent of men versus 70 percent of women), 2.3 times more likely than women to visit sports sites (42 percent of men versus 18 per cent of women), 1.95 times more likely than women to visit investment/stock purchasing sites (39 per cent of men versus 20 per cent of women), and 2.5 times more likely than women to visit blogs (15 percent of men versus 6 percent of women).

More men than women view online pornography at work. Whether it was by accident or on purpose, 16 per cent of men who access the Internet at work said they had visited a porn site while at work, while only 8 per cent of women had done so. Of those that admitted to viewing pornography sites at work, 6 per cent of the men and 5 percent of the women admitted it was intentional.

The Employee survey also reveals that men and women hold different views regarding web-based threats such as spyware and when to involve help desk to remedy the situation. Women who visit Web sites containing spyware are more likely than men to say that their work computer has been negatively impacted by Spyware (45 per cent of women versus of 35 per cent of men surveyed).

On that same note, women who have visited Web sites containing spyware are more than twice as likely as men to call their help desk or IT department if their computer was infected with spyware - 64 per cent of women have called their IT department for help whereas only 30 per cent of men have done so.

“The results of 2006 Web@Work Employee survey illuminate some of the differences between how men and women use the internet at work,” said Michael Newman, vice president and general counsel, Websense. “However, one significant similarity shown in the survey is that both genders can easily be lured in by the internet for its sheer entertainment value or as a resource to complete personal errands. Workplace internet solutions should balance employees’ needs for personal use of the web at work without draining overall productivity or morale, all while keeping employees safe from new web-based security threats such as spyware and phishing attacks.”