Don't leave the stationery cupboard unlocked - Reducing your costs by controlling internet misuse

In most offices there is a stationery cupboard.  If you leave it unlocked all your pens, pencils and paper will slowly disappear and end up at the homes of your staff even though they already have pens and paper.  So how does a stationery cupboard have anything in common with the Internet?

First one happened to us quite a few years ago.  Our internet was running so slowly that I called our service provider and complained bitterly.  Their reply was that we were using the Internet a lot and they recommended a higher speed line at extra cost.  Luckily (and before I spent the money) I was able to do some research and we found that a member of staff was downloading music files and hence was slowing down everybody else.  A quick disciplinary gave us our speed back without incurring the expense of a faster connection.

Second scenario - your productivity does down and you can't understand why.  It's because the staff are surfing the internet instead of working.  Just a few minutes each day for each staff member can soon add up to a lot of productivity.  It happened to us too.  Again we were able to see who the offenders were and take the appropriate action.  Productivity soon went back up.

Third example - I made this one up but I'm sure it exists in offices all over.  Mrs Smith the prim and proper accounts lady walks past the desk of Mr Oldpervert the sales guy.  On his computer is a video of extremely offensive content.  At worst Mrs Smith hands in her notice, takes the company to a tribunal and the company ends up in a mess, and at best she complains to the manager and the office is completely disrupted for a week while everybody has to be placated..

The solution exists in the form of Webdefender.  The service is available on a very reasonable monthly subscription which is undoubtedly covered by the cost savings you'll make.  You can get reports on who has been surfing and where, you can restrict access to only clean websites, or you can block internet access to only the websites you specify.  You can even allow your staff full internet access say at lunchtimes but restrict it the rest of the day, and each staff member can be given their own access policy.  The system even works for mobile users.