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Internet has been a necessary part of working for many businesses. So being employers should provide employees with internet access for working purposes. But for business security sake, employers must monitor employees' internet use and control the access. However employee monitoring and controlling is a sensitive topic. Here is what you need to know about that.

The reasons to monitor employees' internet access

Internet access is required in the office in order to finish their jobs. It can help employees acquire some information related with their jobs. Also increasing the working efficiency and cutting down the working time. If benefits are so many like that, why we need employee monitoring solutions to monitor and control internet access? There are a few important reasons to answer why. Productivity is the first one you should consider, latest survey has showed that employees wastes an average of about one hour a day online - on Facebook, checking sports scores, personal stock portfolios, and other time-wasters. They write personal emails on company time, and chat with family and friends. I'm sure you know people who seem to fritter away the entire day on the Web. That's not what they're being paid to do, and most people agree that employers have a right to stop it.

For keeping your business in safe and not lose any benefits, monitoring employees' emails will be very important for businesses. It is more necessary when monitoring sent and received emails from company-owned IP address. Opening a virus-laden email while at work could expose your company to serious security breaches. Some online activity can even land an employer in jail.

Porn website visited is probably another thing you should take care about. Maybe you have noticed it is so often something like ''XXX has been put behind the bars since finding child porn pictures and movies on his office computer'' appearing in the daily post. With that reason, employers need to block sexually oriented content from the office network.

Music downloading is also an affair to think about. The recording industry ferociously sues everyone it finds downloading the latest hits, and the providers of their Internet access. So there's also a need to block peer-to-peer file sharing services such as Limewire, BitTorrent, and The Pirate Bay from the workplace.

Solutions to fix these pitfalls

The best solutions to monitor employees' internet activities are using employee monitoring software. Comparing with other monitoring ways to monitor employee, employee monitoring software really cost much less and not being a burden with your budget planning. Also employee monitoring software is easy to get from vendors or online order like IMonitor EAM does. Such employee monitoring software can record all activities of each client pc connected with the server.

Schedule for monitoring or controlling

It is pretty hard for most employers to justify if your employees need access Facebook, Youtube or AddictingGames.com or not. That is why many employers block all social networking, shopping and online gaming sites on the whole company network.

However employee monitoring software should provide a blacklist of websites which employees can't access from their clients pc. Also such monitoring software can let you control clients pc access the specific website during specific time. For example, you can set the allowed permission to let employees visit Facebook from Monday to Wednesday, but other time that will be prohibit. Controlling the access to internet or website, that really gives you a chance to make flexible blacklist and schedule.

Anyway monitoring employees activities, maybe that let employees feel indignant or have untrusted mind which later it make them do some inappropriate action against company. So if you have been ready to take employee monitoring software into the company, you need set up a right ''acceptable use polic'' disclosing any monitoring and control of their use of company assets such as the computers on their desks and Internet access.

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