Some Businesses Ban Workers From Using Too Much Bandwidth [POLL]

More and more Garden state businesses are banning their workers from visiting internet sites – even ones like Facebook and YouTube- because when they watch videos and movies it uses up too much of the company’s internet bandwidth and slows down the system for everybody.

Phil Kirschner, President of the New Jersey Business and Industry Association says “that can be a problem if you’re having lots of people doing it at the same time – let’s say doing it during the middle of the day…these IT systems are very, very sensitive and depending on the amount of usage that is going on beyond work, it can have an impact.”

He says “it’s a relatively new development over the past few years and people want to be respectful of other people’s privacy, but it is a workplace…also, you don’t want them on pornography – that’s blocked out – sometimes shopping sites- sometimes betting sites…what people do on their own time is their own business, but if you’re using company property, the company has an obligation to safeguard that and make sure they don’t face liability for what their employees are doing.”

Kirschner adds these days, it can be tough to stop employees from sneaking off and watching videos and movies.

“You can do it on your telephone now,on an iPad,” he says, “all kinds of personal laptops and equipment, and it’s hard to monitor…the bottom line is that if you wouldn’t let employees watch a whole movie on TV, then they shouldn’t be able to watch it on their computers during work time.”