Why Cat Videos Cost Your Business Cash

September 27, 2016
Business, Technology

How many times have you found yourself scrolling your Facebook feed, starting a YouTube video, or snapping a quick photo for Instagram while ‘working’? All of us are guilty of it to one degree or another. There is no harm in the occasional mental break from the daily grind, it can even be healthy.

Yet, the cold hard fact of the matter is, every minute spend watching cat videos is time not spent on responding to clients quickly, processing invoices, or resolving business issues. That cat video is costing your business cash. This pain point is more directly felt when we begin to examine productivity loss in employees as their time is literally a direct expense the company incurs.

Business owners want, and often do, trust their employees to balance their use of the web for personal reasons and to get their work accomplished. Many managers hesitate to put restrictions in place on web use because they don’t want to be a hypocrite, or they don’t want to assume their employees are up to no good. If you have ten or more employees, the chances are good at least one of them is regularly doing something they should not be online on the company dime. This comes in many forms, from visiting risky websites that contain malware that could destroy the company IT systems to viewing pornographic material which creates an uncomfortable work environment and can even open up the company to increased liability. Employees can even go online to research and download software that lets them mask their activities, or even steal information from the company. All of these things are just a few clicks away, with no barrier or monitoring on the majority of small business systems to prevent it.

What does Web Protection & Filtering accomplish in a business?

Preserve employee productivity
Prevent congestion by reducing bandwidth usage for non business purposes
Reduce the risk of exposure to malicious software and scams on the business network
Reduce legal liability from employees accessing and downloading inappropriate or offensive content
Prevent possible lawsuits towards the business from employees sharing copyrighted materials, in the forms of illegal movies and music.

Yes. Every business should have a web usage policy, enforced by software or a monitoring service no matter how you slice it, for security or productivity or both. This can be as simple as blocking malicious content, which many popular antivirus software suites currently do if enabled or dialing in and filtering more types of content as well as monitoring the types of websites employees have access to and use on a day to day basis.

Christina Grady

Christina Grady is the founder and owner of Occubit Technology Solutions. She has been fascinated by the role technology plays in everyday life since she was a child taking apart VCR's and remote control cars. Her passion for helping others creates a perfect bond with her IT background.

Business, Cat, Facebook, IT Support, Social Media, Technology, Web Filtering

Kitty Cat working hard on the computer providing IT Support

Mike and Christina have been protecting Texas Tile Roofing for years with IT consulting and technical support. They go above and beyond every time we give them a call, fixing most issues within minutes, and often they spot major problems before we even notice and get them fixed right up! They set up our entire network from the firewall to the cables, spend hours on the phone with our internet service provider so I don’t have to, trained my employees on a work order system we had for over a year but weren’t using, and are constantly checking our backups to ensure we never lose anything. The peace of mind and security I feel thanks to Occubit goes beyond words. My business wouldn’t be where it is today without them. From everyone here at Texas Tile Roofing, thanks!

Renee Cremean

Office Manager - Texas Tile Roofing

“Occubit handles our office building's servers and computers, and we can always count on them to resolve any issues promptly and professionally. We can simply issue a work order directly from a computer, and they are on it in a flash! Their knowledge and expertise are unsurpassed, and we can always count on them to get us back on track in a hurry.”

Susan O’Connor

Main Street Depot in Keller

“Thank you to Christina and Mike at Occubit Technology Solutions! TGCL is excited to start this new relationship and have y'all help us with all of our current technology needs as well as helping us grow in the future!! Thank you for getting started with us so quickly! I don't think I'll miss the hours spent figuring out all of our computer issues!!”

Cindy Hill

The Good Contractors List