Cyber Monday -- Just the Start of Lost Holiday Employee Productivity

Enforcing acceptable use policies with monitoring software helps organizations stay profitable as the year draws to the close. U.S. employees went shopping from their work PCs on Cyber Monday -- but that certainly isn't the end of it. After losing an estimated $488 million in lost productivity on Cyber Monday, employers stand to lose much more in the coming days and weeks.

Vero Beach, FL (PRWEB) November 30, 2007 -- More than half of America's workforce was busy with something other than work on November 25, 2007 -- Cyber Monday. According to Challenger, Gray & Christmas, a Chicago job placement firm, 68.6 million U.S. employees went shopping from their work PCs Monday -- but that certainly isn't the end of it. After losing an estimated $488 million in lost productivity on Cyber Monday, employers stand to lose much more in the coming days and weeks. According to ecommerce sites, the busiest online shopping days fall between December 4 and the 15, with the number one online shopping day actually occurring two Mondays before Christmas. This year that day is December 10. One answer to the growing problem of online shopping at work is monitoring software like Spector 360, which records and reports on everything employees do while using work computers.

While some say employers shouldn't worry about lost productivity, a separate survey conducted for BJ's Wholesale Club says that half of employees will do ALL of their online shopping at work. With industry estimates showing that this year's online sales could be 20 percent higher than last year and with the use of work computers for shopping continuing to increase every year, employers have valid reason for concern.

The popular approach to stem lost productivity is to remind employees of their responsibilities. Unfortunately, only 11 percent report having been caught shopping at work. That means at least 60 million people will still be shopping at work as the business year draws to a close. Nearly 30 million will do all their online shopping at work, robbing employers and shareholders of billions of dollars because of employee misuse of company-owned computers.

A proven solution to workplace Internet abuse is the use of monitoring software like Spector 360 from SpectorSoft Corporation. Spector 360 records web sites visited, emails sent and received, chats and instant messages, keystrokes typed, files transferred, documents printed, and applications run. In addition, through a first of its kind surveillance camera-like recording tool, Spector 360 shows in exact visual detail what an employee does every step of the way. If employees are shopping during work hours, Spector 360 will detect and record it and can even block the shopping site from future visits. If workers are sending Instant Messages back and forth with an online store or receiving confirmation emails, Spector 360 can alert a manager of the situation.

According to SpectorSoft user Fredrick Smith, MIS Director with The Florida Commission on Human Relations who installed Spector 360 in early 2007, "We discovered that people were spending hours surfing the Internet or chatting. After a Spector 360 presentation, numbers got better, productivity increased. Employees became more conscious of their activity on the computer, and spent more time working than playing."

Spector 360 Employee Monitoring Software offers numerous benefits, most of which organizations will recognize as soon as they install the product. The most significant benefit is the cost savings to a company. Return On Investment (ROI) will be realized almost immediately as a result of increased productivity coupled with the low cost of ownership.

About SpectorSoft
SpectorSoft is the worldwide leader in Internet Monitoring and Surveillance Software. More than 50,000 companies and more than 300,000 consumers have purchased SpectorSoft solutions to crack down on Internet abuse within their organization, and SpectorSoft has been selected for three years by Inc. Magazine as one of the Fastest Growing Private Companies in America.

For more information on SpectorSoft and its other dependable, full-featured PC and Internet Activity Monitoring Software products, please visit http://www.spectorsoft.com.

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