You Tube at Work Place !!

This weekend I came across a Wall Street Journal Publication about restricting video watching at workplace. In an internet framed environment of the present world, I was wondering that how feasible is it to stop the employees from using portals like “You tube / Face book/ and similar ones” when they have already formed a kind of addiction to such services? No doubt that the internet viewers today cannot spend a single day without accessing Google and its other services. But the point is that the businesses are now finding it hard to support these facilities on the limited amount of bandwidth and heavy online traffic. You Tube today is not only a means of entertainment but has also been a trusted source of information when it comes to skimming visual examples out of a large reservoir.

If the companies now realize that the employees should not be able watch videos not related to the work that they perform, they should implement this restriction in a strategic manner so that the employees do not feel deprived and less empowered. The "stakeholder theory" suggests that the welfare of the employees should not be forgone at the cost of company’s profits. The possible options can be to use a permission based access, create a free time zone of about an hour when the access is open to all, conducting an internal audit before deciding what to block and what not. It costs money to any company that needs to add capacity to the existing network or even block online videos. Further the question is that how ethical is it on the part of the employees to steal an hour out of their total time at work for watching the online content. Given the limited bandwidth and time of work, I think it makes sense for the companies to impose a selective restriction on video watching at place of work.

Ref: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120459386857809135.html?mod=djem_jiewr_BE