Employees can behave like kids when it comes to technology at the workplace. When the information technology boom took place, big dot com companies offered fantastic perks to their employees.
Since they were transacting business on the internet, they offered high speed internet connection free to each and every employee. On the face of it, such a move made a lot of sense. However, there were numerous instances where illegal, unethical and downright immoral information was being downloaded off the internet.
People downloaded scanned copies of copyrighted books and printing the same using office resources. When dot com bubble burst and investor funds dried up, organizations turn to cost cutting and quickly discovered that huge overheads were being leaked simply because employees were behaving in an irresponsible manner.
You may encourage your employee to access social networking websites during office hours to ensure the brand image of your organization is always projected positively. However, if your employee focuses on personal usage and completely ignores your organizations requirements, you would be spending a lot of money on the employee without enjoying any benefit in return.
With technology becoming so personal, it is next to impossible to police each and every aspect of the employees functioning properly. The best option is to use technology to counter technology. There are numerous organizations that block certain websites from their office computers. Any employee who is found violating these rules is summarily dismissed.
Of course, no such restriction is absolutely perfect. There are innumerable instances where a minor change in system left a loophole which could be used by employees as and when desired.
The best way to keep your employees under control is to promote self regulation. Try to decentralize the task of control of technology. Rather than controlling things from the head office, ask the person at the ground level to keep his or her subordinates under control.