Would you expect the boss to let you nip off to the supermarket every five minutes during work? Probably not. Yet some staff still happily spend hours trawling the net looking for bargains during company hours, or emailing their mates about plans for the weekend. It may seem harmless but, as Louise Druce finds out, staff monitoring could have more serious implications.

Surely sending a quick email from work to your spouse asking them to get some shopping in and feed the cat can’t do any harm? Probably not. But accidentally hit the send all button when discussing a pint by pint account of what you got up to with the person in accounts down the pub last night and you could be in serious trouble – and not just with the red-face colleague involved.

There have been a glut of high-profile cases over the years of employees getting caught red-handed misusing the internet during company hours. Last June, 14 DVLA workers were sacked for sending pornography to inboxes outside the business. Even as far back as 2001, the Royal and Sun Alliance in Liverpool sacked 10 members of staff and suspended 77 over the distribution of offensive e-mails, one of which featured Bart Simpson in a more compromising situation then you’d ever witness on The Simpsons.

Arguably, the most famous of them all occurred in 2000 when a ‘smutty’ email sent by Claire Swire to her boyfriend Bradley Chait not only forced her into hiding but led to Norton Rose disciplining five staff who forwarded copies of the email, which spread from the London law firm as far away as New Zealand within hours.

While it’s probably obvious to the average worker that you’re on ripe grounds for dismissal if you spend hours surfing pornographic material on the company computer or send potentially offensive material to colleagues who may not appreciate the joke, there are still some who are blurring what activities constitute their human rights with what the company policy will spell out is fundamentally wrong.

“People who use the internet at home are bringing the same attitude to the work desk,” says Phil Worms, head of products and marketing at IT security firm Netintelligence. “Say they were at home on a Saturday bidding for something on eBay, they might check the site every 10 minutes every hour to see how it’s going. People genuinely don’t think there is anything wrong with doing that at work.”

Which leads to another issue of productivity. David Walker, an employment law specialist and partner at law firm Dundas & Wilson, also points to a recent survey that claims over £300 million pounds is being lost every year due to an increase in online gambling at work. He adds: “Would you allow your employee to nip out to the bookies to place a bet?”

The eyes have it

Such incidents have sparked an increase in staff monitoring among bosses, backed up by numerous laws and regulations, such as the Data Protection Act, that aim to clamp down on unauthorised activities in the workplace.

That’s not to say employers have carte blanch to snoop on everything you get up to. The problem is, many workers are still confused as to how far they can go, which has triggered calls for stronger support from HR so that policies distinguish unequivocally where the lines are drawn when it comes to personal use of the net.

“Make it clear to employees that they shouldn’t have any expectations of privacy in telephone calls or emails, and that will be monitored for lawful business purposes. If the employees need further guidance, they should be given a channel to do that,” says Walker. “Also, make sure that the contract of employment specifically mentions the unacceptable use policy and the potential of disciplinary action in cases of misuse. This effectively gives them a warning in advance.”

Of course, some employees will happily sign a contract stating that they will abide by the policies and blatantly flout them anyway. But there are other measures businesses can put in place to make sure the message is reinforced as often as possible and they are left in no doubt as to where they stand should they break the rules. For instance, at Walker’s firm, the computers have been set up so that once an employee has accessed the system with their own passwords, a statement pops up reminding them what the acceptable use policy is and they can choose whether or not to proceed.

Some companies have turned to technology to make plans even more foolproof. Netintelligence, for example, has developed a desktop application that can block access to certain sites at predefined times set out in the company policy. It can also be used on computers connected to the company network out of the office, which will prevent mobile workers from misusing the system as well.

Other methods might include building discussions about policy into induction and training programmes. “As long as mangers are honest and open with their staff, there should be less of a feeling of monitoring being like Big Brother,” says Rob Sleeman, head of operations, Europe, at Merchants Consulting, which works with major call centres in the UK.

“Firstly, they must make sure they are in constant contact with their HR and compliance teams for updates on new regulations. Secondly, bosses should make sure that learning about monitoring regulations is part of their accreditation coaching program. Staff members should not be made responsible for monitoring unless they have been properly trained and accredited to carry out the monitoring task.

He adds. “Monitoring and employees’ rights should be part of base policy and company bosses should be constantly checking their quality teams are sticking to these policies,”

The wider implications

Whether monitoring is still seen as a Big Bother tactic is a moot point. But Walker argues that internet misuse has wider implications than simply sacking a person because they have been looking at inappropriate material. “The employee could lose their job and the employer could also be sacked,” he explains.

He cites a typical case where a female colleague accidentally views pornographic material that another employee is looking at. “If the woman takes offence, she could sue the employer for sex discrimination because the material could amount to harassment,” he says. “You then have a situation where the employee is disciplined, the employer could be sued and then the individual looking at the material could also be sued.

However, Walker believes a far bigger issue for the future is blogging, especially when workers embroil their boss in internet chat. “There is a risk if people bad mouth others within the office without realising the extent of the [internet] traffic. If the blog names the employer, or they can be readily recognised, it could come back to bite them at a later date,” he says.

HR can only do so much. The bottom line is, as the issue of monitoring becomes more complex, we could all do well to weigh up the risks before slating the company on MySpace or constantly sending instant messages to mates about plans for the weekend on company time if you don’t want to be found out.

As Walker says: “There is a far greater realisation of the implications of doing something that could be seen as being on the wrong side of the employer’s business rules. Think before you do it.”