“My team is now down to three people,” Marissa explained. ” I hope that was my last reduction in force. I don’t know how we are going to get everything done.”
“How are you going to get everything done?” I asked.
“I don’t know. I guess we will just have to work harder.”
“Work harder, not smarter, that’s the ticket,” I replied.
Marissa smiled and nodded. “You are right, our work volume is down. But when you lose people, there are some things you still have to do.”
“Do you? How are you going to get everything done?”
“I guess there are some things we are NOT going to do.”
“The first step to higher productivity is to eliminate things that are not necessary. How are you going to make that decision?”
According to a new report by Nielsen Online, most online videos in the U.S. are watched at work between 9am and 5pm during the work week. With a 96 percent broadband penetration among employers, workdays are prime time for online video viewing. 65% of all online viewers use work time to watch their favorite online videos. This is no surprise to employers. Surveys agree that employees spend, on average, up to two hours a day surfing the Internet for personal reasons. Besides being a huge drain on productivity, video streaming also uses valuable bandwidth. Businesses, government agencies and schools who do not have, and enforce, a policy regarding video streaming run the risk of their networks crashing or, at the least, slowing down drastically.
The problem is only going to get worse. A December 2008 report by ABS Research revealed that there are 563 million Internet video viewers in 2008 but that number is expected to grow to 941 million by 2013. If you are worried employees are abusing video streaming at work – they probably are. According to a survey of SpectorSoft customers who use the company’s Spector 360 PC and Internet monitoring software – 96% said the software confirmed their original suspicions. 89% of the companies surveyed found more abuse than they expected, with 28% finding “far more†abuse.
SpectorSoft Survey: http://downloads.spectorsoft.com/resources/WhitePapers/monitoringSurvey.pdf
ABS Research: http://www.abiresearch.com/press/1327-As+Online+Video+Viewing+Shifts+From+PC+to+TV+Screen%2C+Viewers+Will+Number+Nearly+One+Billion+by+2013
Nielsen PDF: http://www.nielsen-online.com/pr/pr_081217.pdf