Czech employees spend one fifth of working hours on average surfing online. Such was the result of a survey conducted by TruconneXion on employees of hundreds of Czech companies.
The survey also shows that the time spent online at work is mostly dedicated to online social networks, led by Facebook.
“It is similar to the employees spending at least one hour and a half having a friend sitting at their table discussing their weekend or holiday,” said Robert Kleiner, head of strategic development at TruconneXion. Large social network Facebook, bringing together 200 million people according to June statistics, with the Czech users reaching almost 1 million; is mainly about entertainment, photo sharing and chatting with friends.
“We conducted the survey of some 100,000 computers only in companies that had commissioned it. The surveyed had no idea they were monitored, of course. We did not see the content the users were writing or receiving but we could see what applications and for how long they used,” Kleiner said.
Dangerous game
The fact that the popularity of online entertainment during working hours is on the rise has been known for a while. Dozens of Tatra Kopřivnice and Ostrava Town Hall employees lost their jobs due to entertainment surfing during working hours.
Social networks’ popularity has been on the increase since 2008. Before that it was mostly computer games such as now legendary Solitaire or strategic online game Travian. This trend has also been confirmed by the most popular Czech dating web site Líbimseti.cz. “While some 1.8 million users visited the web site in June 2008, it was more than 2.2 million, in June this year,” said Tomáš Kapalín, sales manager of the portal. The year-on-year increase is some 30%.
Email as calming down treatment
Despite some relaxing internet application supporters claiming that chatting or a simple game helps the employee relax and thus get more effective, experts do not assign much benefits to this kind of relaxation.
“If there is any positive effect then it definitely is rather small,” said psychotherapist David Doležal. “On this kind of scale it rather distracts one from working. Since, as soon as one focuses on work he starts to surf yet again,” Doležal said adding it is necessary to distinguish between games, dating services and emails. “Often, when an employee exchanges a private -mail with his family it clams him down and he helps him focus better.”
