CorpComms Magazine

One fifth of employees would turn down a job if the workplace were to bar them from accessing social networks and personal email, according to a study by UK software security company Clearswift.

Over half of workers aged 25-34 regularly carry out social and personal tasks, such as checking social networks, email and online shopping, in working hours, with men more likely to 'home from work' than women. The increasing pressure to work longer hours may account for this trend. However two thirds of respondents acknowledged they would make up the time by working late or through their lunch break.

More than six out of ten employees felt they should be allowed to conduct personal business during working hours, compared to just half of managers, whilst 79 per cent of workers ranked being trusted to manage their own time and use of the Internet above their salary or job role.

The survey explored employee attitudes to Internet use in the workplace and identified a new era of workers, termed 'generation standby', who never entirely switch off from either work or home.

Hilary Backwell, global human resources director at Clearswift, said: 'Call it multi-tasking or life-splicing but increasingly, fuelled by advances in technology, employees are blurring the boundaries between home and work.

'Generation Standby employees are now enjoying, and expecting, greater levels of flexibility and mobility than ever before - but this cultural shift raises new questions about trust in the workplace, the use of new technologies, the balance of power in the employer vs. employee relationship and levels of control that businesses now have over people and content.'

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