Driven to distraction: What causes cyberloafing at work?

With the rise in virtual work teams, flexible work arrangements, and personal electronic devices in the workplace, the opportunities for cyberloafing — using the Internet for nonwork activities — are plentiful and creating serious problems for many businesses.

A new study from the Wisconsin School of Business at the University of Wisconsin–Madison examines two key personality traits — conscientiousness and emotional stability — that affect the likelihood of cyberloafing, and looks at certain workplace conditions that may increase employee engagement.

Maria Triana, associate professor of management and human resources with the Wisconsin School of Business, Kwanghyun Kim of Korea University, Kwiyoung Chung of Western University in Canada, and Nahyun Oh of the University of Missouri, offer the following suggestions for organizations seeking to reduce online distractions as a means of increasing productivity:

• Screen candidates for conscientiousness and emotional stability during job interviews.
• Create appropriate human resource practices and effectively communicate with employees so they feel people are treated fairly.
• Have a policy that personal devices and nonwork email can be checked during breaks or only as needed throughout the day to minimize distractions.

“Both conscientiousness and emotional stability are strong predictors for job performance, and their presence would suggest a reduced likelihood of cyberloafing,” says Triana. “But we found that even a conscientious employee with a strong work ethic will engage in cyberloafing if they feel there is a lack of justice or fair treatment in the workplace. That means it is important for organizations to focus not only on those personal traits, but in creating a work environment where employees believe they are treated fairly and equitably.”

Triana says the amount of time employees spend cyberloafing is estimated to range from three hours a week to as much as 2.5 hours per day. Cyberloafing can not only lead to declines in productivity, but can lead to problems in information systems and data security, such as network bandwidth overload, spyware infections, and virus malware being introduced through illicit software downloading and surfing unsecure websites. Organizations that have jobs requiring high levels of data security and regular oversight or surveillance need to consider selecting employees with traits that make them less inclined to cyberloaf, Triana says.

The research found that conscientious individuals seek to fulfill their obligations, are normally centered on task accomplishment and are less likely to be distracted and cross the line into cyberloafing. Emotionally stable people have less need to spend time and energy regulating their emotions, have more capacity to allocate resources to tasks at hand and are less likely to lose focus.

Another workplace condition the research considered was the level of employee empowerment. When empowerment is high, people generally have a good attitude about work and are more likely to be satisfied. But even in high empowerment situations, cyberloafing was constant and relatively high, suggesting the temptation to cyberloaf may be too great, even for a conscientious employee.

For that reason, Triana says an effective approach may be having sensible policies in place to keep cyberloafing under control without taking away the benefits associated with empowering employees.

Triana’s research appears in Human Resource Management.