More companies watch workers' Web use

Pornography isn't the only reason companies are establishing formal policies on Internet usage during office hours.

Other more innocuous-sounding categories - sports, stock trading, job hunting, chat, and shopping - are getting banned because they reduce worker productivity, say human-resource professionals.

Job-placement firm Management Recruiters International Inc., in Cleveland, Ohio, recently surveyed more than 4,000 executives on Internet usage.

Among the findings:

*More than 80 percent said that management-level employees who use PCs now also have access to the Internet at work.

*66 percent said that their companies have an Internet usage policy in place.

*31 percent said their companies have filtering software in place to block employees from visiting certain sites.

Corporate Internet policies range from restrictions on the amount of time an employee can surf the Internet for personal use to guidelines on the kind of sites that are inappropriate for employees. Some companies go so far as to prohibit employees from using the Internet for personal use at all during office hours.

For more on how employees are using the Web to search for new jobs, see cover story, page 11.

(c) Copyright 1999. The Christian Science Publishing Society