Employees visiting these sites will find distractions ranging from games to chat rooms to advice from self-proclaimed expert cyberslackers on how best to surf the net at work without being caught. Each site also features a prominent panic button in case the boss wanders by. Simply click on it and a phony spreadsheet pops onto your screen and typing sounds clack from your speakers. The Internet also offers disgruntled employees the perfect forum to air complaints. As with cyberslacking, specialized websites exist where employees can post stories and complaints about their employers or co-employees.
Employees can also anonymously post false statements about their company over the Internet.
And perhaps most harmful, employees can use the Internet to disseminate truthful information about an employer that is nonetheless very harmful such as company trade secrets, proprietary information, or public disclosures of confidential non-public information. Harassment The Internet and electronic mail systems also present a new twist on the age-old problem of workplace harassment. It is increasingly common for evidence of sexual, racial, or other forms of harassment to be found in electronic communications containing graphic images, sexually explicit jokes, or other derogatory and offensive content. And, human nature being what it is, employees will often send things in electronic form that they wouldn t dare say to a recipient s face. Unfortunately, many employees either do not know or simply forget that hitting the delete button often does not eliminate a message, but simply sends it to a new storage place.