It’s 9 a.m. Do You Know Where Your Employees Are?

Cyber Monday. The newest of holiday retail traditions. The premise is that on their return to work for the first official business day of the holiday retail season, typically loyal, hard-working employees use their employer’s high-speed Internet access to make the purchases on their Christmas list that they were not able to make on Black Friday — the day after Thanksgiving — at brick-and-mortar stores.

January 20, 2009 — Inauguration Day. Millions of employees view Web sites from their places of employment to watch streaming video of Barack Obama become the 44th president of the United States — all from the comfort of their office chair.

Integra Telecom serves more than 100,000 businesses across 11 western states. The Internet traffic we manage for our customers is a measure of just how many of our customers’ clients and employees are relying on the Internet. For both Cyber Monday and this week’s inauguration, Integra measured more than 30 percent increases in Internet traffic over normal business days. On inauguration day, the traffic peaked at 9 a.m. Pacific just as President Obama was taking his oath of office. In fact, that Tuesday turned out to be Integra’s single largest Internet traffic day ever.

Cyber Monday has become an economic event all its own and its success is measured and watched nearly as closely as Black Friday. But is it really just as much a phenomenon as it used to be? I mean, by now, doesn’t everyone have the Internet bandwidth at home that they need to make online purchases? Chase Paymentech, a leading processor of online payments, announced that the largest online selling day this holiday season actually was Tuesday, Dec. 2, at $218 million, squeaking past Wednesday, Dec. 17 at $217 million. So maybe the Internet traffic spike on Cyber Monday actually is a result of retailers spamming a workforce of screen watchers amped up after a weekend of shopping with special offers or price discounts? Or perhaps Monday is spent comparing prices and it’s Tuesday when the buying is done.

Whatever the reason or event, it begs the question, “Just what are employees doing online?”

Big brother-like software can monitor employees’ Web behavior and restrict access to some sites, but is that the right approach from an employer who relies on trust to build morale and motivate their workforce?

Time spent on sites for non-business purposes not only drains productivity from employees who update their social media pages or stream stock quotes, but it also saps bandwidth from employees who rely on those same Internet pipes to access critical company systems in order to meet goals and serve customers.

The truth is that the numbers don’t lie and behavior changes on Cyber Monday or when there’s a big news event. In any case, bosses beware; March Madness — college basketball’s annual basketball tournament — is just around the corner. Challenger, Gray & Christmas, an executive outplacement firm, last year estimated that the two-week-long men's college basketball tournament cost companies some $1.7 billion in wasted time.

John Nee is vice president of corporate communications at Integra Telecom. Prior to joining Integra in 2000, Nee held management positions with Sequent Computer Systems (now IBM) and Creativepro.com, where he managed sales, strategic partnerships, application services development and marketing.