Thanks to James Mullan and Headshift for bringing my attention to this must read post of Capgemini’s ‘Capping IT Off’ blog entitled ‘4 Myths about blocking Internet access in the enterprise’

The post echoes comments I made in my post from last week ‘Why ‘wasted time’ is wasted column inches’ about just why blocking access to and banning social networking and other sites from the workplace is counterproductive and, frankly, stupid.

Rick Mans’ 4 myths are:

  • Blocking will increase the productivity of the employee
  • We will save a lot of money since our employees are wasting the bandwidth
  • No issues with downloaded inappropriate content / malware
  • Our reputation is at risk if our employees are online.

    • His conclusion is simple - TALK with your employees. “You only block Internet access when you are afraid to talk with your employees about their behavior. Preventing behavior does not solve your problems, it will prevent them just for a short period of time.”

    I could not agree more.

    [What does make this amusing however is the number of comments on Rick’s post about Capgemini’s policies re internet access. Seems maybe they don’t share Rick’s approach on this one. Sort of, do as I say, not as I do].