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theword on 25 April 2009
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NJ5 said:
Words Of Wisdom said:
NJ5 said:

I think you misunderstood my point. I'm not saying they "should be allowed to slack off". I'm saying they either do or don't, and the ones that do aren't going to work more because you block one of the ways of slacking off. The only thing that's likely to happen is that they'll be less happy with their job. Micro-managing people to change their habits is very hard.

Incidentally I also believe that the vast majority of employees are not equally productive every day. Do you believe otherwise

 

Ah, so you're saying if an employee is willing to slack off by reading forums that negating their access will not fix the problem.  That makes much more sense.

I don't think skill between two employees should be an excuse to allow one to slack off if that is where you are going with that question. 

You pay someone for 40 hours of their time a week and they give you not 30, not 35, but 40 hours of their time a week.  It's a very simple and reasonable request.

That's not where I was going with the question. My point is that people's productivity varies from day to day, people aren't always fully productive. In their less productive moments they can be clearing their mind for a period of time while reading forums (or daydreaming, or whatever clears their mind), or they can be less happy because some manager decided to control them.

Of course I might be biased due to my background as a software engineer. Working permanently all day is not the best way to work, sometimes you just need to freshen up your mind by looking away from the code or design you're producing. This often results in better productivity when you get back to work. There are also periods where you simply have to wait for the computer to finish calculating something, and it's not enough time to take up another task so the best thing to do is to go check your email, or some news or whatever.

In this case I believe trying to control employees by blocking stuff they like to read is counter-productive and will result in bad will. I realize it may be different for other kinds of jobs.

 

I do some programming myself and as you said I do occasionally browse misc news and forums on the job to clear my mind.   Needless to say, I probably enjoy this type of activity as much as you do.  However, you need to put yourself into  the position of your company.  For every 2, 3 employees who browse forum responsibly, there are 7, 8 others who abuse it.  Some of our friends here even admit of spending half a days of company time on this stuff.   So perhaps the ban hammer was put in place for those 7,8 others peers and not you.   Your best option is to educate your peers on this topic for a more free future.