Wednesday 3 April 2013

The Ongoing Business Challenge: Making Employees More Productive

Business owners and managers face a remarkable number of challenges each and every day: ensuring that the work that needs to be done is completed accurately and on time; making sure that employees are treated fairly; overseeing the interaction between employees to be sure it’s positive and respectful; interacting with upper management and/or other branches of the company in a positive, effective manner; resolving employee and/or customer complaints, etc. The list goes on and on.
One of the biggest challenges that any employer faces is how to motivate your employees to be as productive as they can possibly be. After all, it takes a lot of time to find and retain good employees and costs a substantial amount of money to keep them on board. First there’s the time-consuming interview process to try to narrow down the field of applicants. Once you make a job offer and it’s accepted, you’ll need to provide complete and adequate training for the employee. And, finally, you’ll have to provide the employee with an acceptable salary and benefit package, with the opportunity to advance in the future.
Considering all the time and money you have invested in each of your workers, it’s no wonder that you want each person to be as productive as possible. One of the stumbling blocks with regard to productivity is the misuse of the Internet. Some recent studies have suggested that many American workers waste as much as two hours out of every workday engaged in personal pursuits on the Internet: from shopping to reading local news and weather reports to checking in with family and friends on social media sites, and so on. This can cost your business a tremendous amount of money.
Some managers have tried using web filtering software in an effort to resolve the problem. This type of software blocks access to certain websites. This might be useful in some settings – for a parent interested in preventing a child from visiting inappropriate sites, for example – but it rarely works in a business environment. In fact, using content filtering in an effort to stop your workers from accessing certain sites will sometimes make it difficult for an employee to do his or her job. Web filtering often involves blocking entire categories of websites, even though some of the individual sites within a category might be helpful to your business.
Rather than getting caught up in the challenges presented by misuse of the Internet, it’s much better to focus your time and effort in developing different ways to motivate your employees to do a better job. Internet content filtering might address one small piece of the puzzle, but it does nothing to make your workers more productive.
Get more information about How to Block a Website and Employee Computer Monitoring user can visit @ mysammy.com

Monday 1 April 2013

Should You Block Websites to Improve Employee Productivity?

It’s hard to believe that the Internet has only been in widespread use since 1995. Now, for many business owners and managers – even those who are old enough to remember doing business in the days before the Internet – it’s hard to imagine how we ever got along without it. In many ways, this miracle of the modern age has proven to be a huge advantage to businesses of all sizes. Just consider all of the mundane chores and other business-related tasks that have been streamlined thanks to the Internet.

However, as with everything in life, there is a downside. For all the benefits it provides to businesses, the Internet has also presented a significant challenge to business owners and managers around the world: how do you keep employees from wasting time on the Internet during business hours? If you look at recent studies, you’ll find that the estimates of how much time employees waste on the Internet during the course of each workday are absolutely staggering. In fact, some studies suggest that as many as 44 percent of American workers waste about 2 hours a day on the Internet. Just imagine what this is costing your company!

Several business owners and managers have attempted to resolve the problem by using tools that block sites. Their thinking is, obviously, if their employees don’t have access to undesirable websites, then they’ll be more productive at work. This reasoning is faulty on many fronts. 

First of all, the tools currently available on the market that block websites often block entire categories of sites rather than just a few. Many times these sites are ones that could actually help your employees perform their jobs.

Secondly, the recent surge in popularity of both smart phone and tablet PC technology make it virtually impossible for you as a manager to block sites that your employees want to visit. While it is certainly possible to block websites on their work computers, you can’t (nor should you be able to) block sites on their smart phones and tablet PCs. Other recent studies suggest that the majority of American workers now carry smart phones with them every day. In other words, if your employees truly want to visit certain websites, they have the ability to do so no matter what actions you may take in an effort to stop them.

The third and even more important issue involves the real root of the problem, and that is a lack of motivation on the part of your employees. The only true resolution to the problem is to discover why your employees want to waste time and to find a way to motivate them to do a better job.

Get and find the best information about How to Block a Website and Internet Blocking users can visit at mysammy.com.

Why Your Employees Aren’t More Productive

If you’ve noticed a marked lack of productivity among your employees, or if you feel that you’re not getting an adequate amount of work in exchange for the salary you pay your employees, there could be many issues involved. One of the biggest challenges that business owners and managers face in today’s business climate is making sure that their employees aren’t wasting time on the Internet each day. As it turns out, they have good reason to worry.

Many recent studies have been done on Internet use during the workday. Those studies have found that an alarming number of American workers spend as much as two hours per day wasting time on the Internet. In an effort to resolve the issue, many employers have turned to computer tracking software. This type of product, often referred to as “spyware” for obvious reasons, provides a manager with information about which sites employees are visiting and how often they visit them. While there’s no doubt that Internet tracking software might possibly have a use in certain situations, if you’re really trying to discover why your employees aren’t more productive, it’s not the answer.

Many employees would consider computer tracking software as invasive, to say the least. Once one employee becomes aware of it, it’s only a matter of time before all your workers know that you’re using it. From there, things only get worse. Your employees will likely feel that they’re being spied on, which will lead to resentment, which in turn will lead to an even greater lack of productivity. Internet tracking software will actually make your problem even worse.

The real reason why your employees aren’t more productive goes much further than misuse of the Internet: the real reason is that they simply lack motivation to do a better job. As an employer, your primary goal in this situation is to find out why. Are your workers bored? Do they feel that they’re not being paid enough? Are they unhappy with their working conditions? Talking with each employee is a great way to start, but that may not uncover the real truth since some workers may not feel completely comfortable talking to you face-to-face about what the real problems are in the workplace. Another option might be to give your employees the opportunity to complete anonymous questionnaires, which would allow them to honestly tell you what needs to change in the work environment.

Only when you discover why your employees lack motivation can you begin to develop a plan to resolve the problem. The first and most important part of the process is to find a way to give your workers the chance to express their true feelings without fear of retribution.

Get more information about Computer Tracking Software and Computer Monitor Software please visit at mysammy.com