How much time will your employees spend shopping online at work this holiday season? Here are some interesting statistics from the Information Systems and Audit Control Association (ISACA).

  • About 1 in 4 employees plan to shop online using company-supplied devices.
  • The average employee plans to spend 6 or more hours shopping online.
  • 52% of employees click on shopping links in e-mails and 28% give their employer’s address to online shopping outlets.
  • Employers are taking a “limit” versus “prohibit” approach to personal use of company-supplied devices. Those that ban personal usage are down to 11%, while 49% now limit use in some fashion.
  • While 84% of employers rank use of mobile shopping apps as a significant risk, 42% allow such usage.
  • Employers estimate losing an average of $1,000 in productivity per employee due to online shopping (with 1 in 5 putting the number much higher at $15,000 per employee).

What’s the Big Deal?

In addition to lost productivity, failure to address the above activity can result in viruses, spam, phishing and other horrible things that can cripple a company’s IT infrastructure.

What Should Employers Do?

Almost all companies have implemented computer usage policies to deal with these issues. But many of them are ridiculously overbroad and inconsistently enforced, which can result in morale issues and discrimination lawsuits.

So, what should you do?

  1. Implement a reasonable computer usage policy and consistently enforce it.
  2. Train employees on appropriate computer usage before the holidays and follow up with reminders.
  3. Implement basic security measures such as spam filters, patches, firewalls and intrusion detection systems and update them regularly.
  4. Monitor networks for suspicious activity, respond quickly to threats and remind employees to notify management of potential problems.
  5. Conduct periodic risk assessments and update the usage policy and security measures accordingly.

ISACA has loads of helpful tips on this topic. For more, click here.