Nearly 49 percent of workers expect to spend some time in the office this holiday season shopping online, on par with past years, revealed CareerBuilder's "Cyber Monday" Internet usage study.
"Employers tend to be more lenient when it comes to workers using breaks or down time to get online and - in some cases - take care of some online shopping," said Rosemary Haefner, vice president of human resources at CareerBuilder.
More than a quarter of workers plan to shop from work either on Black Friday (12 percent) or Cyber Monday (16 percent). Shopping from the office is most common in the weeks leading up to December 25, with 30 percent saying they're most likely to shop from work after December 7. The study also revealed that a higher percentage of women (43 percent) have shopped online while at the office compared to men (36 percent).
Nearly 25 percent of employers have fired someone for using the Internet for non-work related activity. Seven percent of hiring managers have fired an employee for holiday shopping at work. Fifty-three percent of employers block employees from accessing certain websites.
"Iit is the employee's responsibility to know and adhere to their company's policy regarding Internet usage," Haefner said. "Be aware of how you spend time on the Web, and don't let your holiday shopping get in the way of your productivity."
Employees using their work computers for social media and personal email should be responsible and police themselves when it comes to appropriate Internet usage at work as 45 percent of workers are connected with co-workers on social media. It should be noted that 11 percent of hiring managers have fired an employee for something they posted on social media, 30 percent of employers monitor their employees' email use, and 11 percent of hiring managers have fired someone for sending non-work related emails.
The survey of more than 2,400 employers and more than 3,900 workers nationwide was conducted online by Harris Interactive from Aug. 13 to Sept. 6.
