Management Decision Problem

What To Do About Employee Web Usage

1 .       As the head of a small insurance company with six employees, you are concerned about how effectively your company is using its networking and human resources. Budgets are tight, and you are struggling to meet payrolls because employees are reporting many overtime hours. You do not believe that the employees have a sufficiently heavy workload to warrant working longer hours and are looking into the amount of time they spend on the Internet. Each employee uses a computer with Internet access on the job. You requested the following weekly report of employee Web usage from your company Web server.

Web Usage Report for the Week Ending January 12, 2003:

User Name
Minutes
Online
URL Visited
Kelleher, Claire
45
www.doubleclick.net
Kelleher, Claire
57
www.yahoo.com
Kelleher, Claire
96
www.insuremarket.com
McMahon, Patricia
83
www.e-music.com
Milligan, Robert
112
www.shopping.com
Milligan, Robert
43
www.travelocity.com
Olivera, Ernesto
40
www.internetnews.com
Talbot, Helen
125
www.etrade.com
Talbot, Helen
27
www.nordstrom.com
Talbot, Helen
35
www.yahoo.com
Talbot, Helen
73
www.ebay.com
Wright, Steven
23
www.geocities.com
Wright, Steven
15
www.autobytel.com

  1. Calculate the total amount of time each employee spent on the Web for the week and the total amount of time that company computers were used for this purpose. Rank the employees in the order of the amount of time each spent on-line.
  2. Do your findings and the contents of the report indicate any ethical problems employees are creating? Is the company creating an ethical problem by monitoring its employees' use of the Internet?
  3. Use the guidelines for ethical analysis presented in this chapter to develop a solution to the problems you have identified.