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If you are placed in an open plan office often times I have seen people try and keep their internet browsing activities minimal or try and shape their browser window so that their colleagues do not see them browsing. Does this sound familiar?

You get the whole banning various websites by companies and then of course you have the few privileged admin rights staff who will have their msn / yahoo messenger on their computer and are busy chatting with friends under the pretext of work. Why should some staff have these privileges?

Why are we living in such a make believe employment world? Why are we restricted with permutations even though we like to consider ourselves as responsible human beings? During my visit last year to India I decided to test the waters. I visited a few colleges to gain an understanding of what the young generation is up to these days. They love going and visiting their Bebo account, their facebook account, you tube, etc and of course these are banned in many organizations, but these companies need to wake up. The internet is a different beast altogether the more you restrict it the tougher it will get. So what if you have no admin rights to install your messenger and chat with friends now web companies have this freely accessible as web messengers. How many web messengers can you ban?So what if you cannot check your emails from your normal yahoo, gmail, hotmail accounts, employees email each other through their corporate accounts. So what if someone sees you browsing the internet is it a crime?

Traditionally Tea breaks and cigarette breaks have been the most common types of breaks within office culture today people want to have online breaks.

What companies need to understand is that the world has moved on. Today staff are wanting to have what I call power breaks, these breaks enable them to focus on their work, this could be having a conversation with their friend over the phone, browsing the internet, or merely reading the newspaper offline. If each person meets their key performance indicators and are completing their work then let them do what they love doing.

By having retarded restrictions such as banning websites, or giving them a look of “hey you stop browsing and do some work” ain’t gonna cut it. The world where the Y generation dictates how they want to be treated has launched, they are in power to decide what information they want and when they want it. They can multi task and receive information from multiple sources at one time. Companies need to respect this and treasure their staff.

With technology moving at a pace that businesses need to cope with, very soon PDAs and mobile internet will be a commodity, are you going to ban your staff from browsing through their own PDAs? Embrace the change and cope with the new ways of working culture. Give the power to your staff and see the productivity rise. All the best and if you have any thoughts please do share this so others reading this post could benefit.