Companies need to tackle equipment abuse

Companies have an uphill battle when it comes to controlling equipment abuse, including telephones, facsimile machines, cellular phones and company petrol. They need to find a way to resolve this without being too strict on employees and without destroying employee motivation, said Craig Young, MD of Unison Communications, the specialist software company focusing on enterprise communications.

Commenting on equipment abuse by employees, Young said this is a “big challenge” for the legal and human resources divisions within companies.

“Companies seem to err on the side of caution, saying that it is a sensitive subject and touching on it could cause disruption within the company. However, if left unchecked, these abuses could lead to serious costs for companies and, at the end of the day, could result in job losses anyway due to dwindling profits,” said Young.

Karen Geldenhuys, MD of ICT-focused recruitment company Abacus Recruitment, said the abuse of equipment is difficult to control. “When it comes to Internet usage, for instance, a growing number of companies are keeping track of which Web sites employees are visiting. This can be embarrassing for employees, but, due to the substantial number of work hours lost through employees trawling the Internet, this approach is becoming more acceptable.

“Employers do notice, for instance, when there is a constant use of 3G cards and yet productivity is not up or, in fact, has gone down. There are software solutions that are able to monitor equipment usage, including 3G usage, landline telephones, cellular phones and facsimile-routed telephone calls.

“There have been instances where employees make long and costly phone calls from facsimile phones because sometimes these lines are not monitored. In these cases, specialised software should be used to monitor usage.”

She said Facebook and Mixit are also becoming problems for companies. “A lot of time is being spent by employees on Mixit and Facebook. If an employee consistently abuses company equipment he or she should be warned, and if it continues a disciplinary hearing should be carried out. Abuse of computer equipment can chop 10% or more off a company's revenue.”