1 in 2 S'pore firms monitor if employees shop online, check
social media at work: survey
SINGAPORE - Half the companies in Singapore may be monitoring their
employees internet use at work for excessive personal use, a survey
by recruitment firm Robert Half has found.
Some 52 per cent of the 75 chief technology officers and chief
information officers surveyed in Singapore reported doing this,
while one in three block access to some online shopping sites,
according to the survey results released on Thursday.
The survey, conducted in the middle of this year, also found that
Singapore employees spend 9.3 per cent of their online activity on
websites not related to work, such as doing online shopping,
looking up travel sites or checking social media.
This is less than Hong Kong and Japanese employees, who
respectively spend 13.2 per cent and 14.6 per cent of their time
online on personal sites.
Employees at large firms with over 1,000 employees spend the least
time - just 6.3 per cent of their online activity - surfing the web
during work. But at the same time, large firms are more likely to
block access to online shopping sites, with 56 per cent of the
Singapore respondents reporting they do so.
Robert Half Singapore's managing director Stella Tang said in a
release: "Larger firms tend to have more controls in place as they
have more resources in their IT departments to establish policies
and monitor employee activity."
"An employee's personal activities need to be weighed against the
contribution an employ makes to the company," she added. "If an
employee is performing above expectations, few employers will worry
about them spending a bit of extra time getting their holiday
sorted or buying a present for their family."
ST