Michelle Rodger: Tide is turning on workplace surf ban

PAC-MAN was 30 years old last week and to commemorate the occasion, Google redesigned its home page to include a playable version of the video game to celebrate the anniversary of its launch in Japan.

It was a huge hit. Employees the world over reverted to their childhood and became hooked on Pac-Man once more: and Google apparently gobbled up almost five million hours of work time.

The statistics on how many people played and for how long were gathered by software firm Rescue Time, which makes time-tracking software that keeps an eye on what workers do and where they go online.

On a typical day, apparently, most people conduct about 22 searches on the Google page, each one lasting about 11 seconds. By simply putting the Pac-Man game on the page, Google managed to boost that time by an average of about 36 seconds.

Extrapolating this across the 504 million unique users who visit the main Google page every day, this adds up to an increase of 4.8 million hours – equal to about 549 years.

And in money terms, assuming people are paid 17 an hour, this equates to about 82m in lost productivity. For that kind of money, suggested Rescue Time, it would be possible to hire all Google's employees and put them to work for about six weeks.

It's happening in offices the world over. Lost revenue, loss of focus, lack of customer service; it might even be as simple as someone taking seven or eight rings to answer the phone, or quickly swapping screens as you walk past, and you just know they're playing online.

Little wonder then that employers are clamping down and banning access to the internet during working hours. But is such a knee-jerk reaction the right answer, or is it actually counter-productive? Treating employees like kids rather than responsible adults may just prove to be the wrong approach, especially since employee retention is such an issue currently.

We spend so much of our lives at work, it is important that we have a bit of fun too, otherwise it would be very dull, says Ken Naismith, managing director of data management specialists Data Discoveries. But so long as you remain professional and still get the job done, this is a key element for business success. Naismith believes having fun at work encourages creativity and a positive environment, both of which have "significant business benefits to employees, customers and ultimately the business".

If you look more closely at the kinds of online activity you can see clearly that there are genuine business benefits to be had from encouraging employees to engage with social media, not least of all for networking purposes. It used to be about interacting with the internet, but now it is about interacting with people, whether fellow employees, suppliers, partners or even customers.

Richard Moir, chief technology officer for Cisco Scotland believes this is a vital connection. Organisations are beginning to realise the full potential of social media applications like LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter to better connect these people. There is a tremendous opportunity, he says, to facilitate teamwork and communicate more regularly and freely with customers on an instantaneous basis, which has huge business benefits.

With more than 25 million active Facebook accounts and more than three million active LinkedIn accounts in the UK, it stands to reason that this activity, this new connectivity, will have a knock-on effect on business networking and knowledge sharing.

Polly Purvis, executive director of ScotlandIS, agrees the internet is an essential utility, increasingly used by all businesses, which can provide a vehicle for delivering greater productivity at work.

But businesses need to give staff clear direction on how they expect it to be used, she says – particularly since social media, currently very popular outside work and seen as a new fun trend, is crossing the divide into the business world, with companies harnessing its power to support their brands and build communities of customers and users.

It's a very cost-effective channel for communicating with customers (particularly younger customers) and influencers, says Purvis. If organisations can transfer the benefits of social media to the work environment within reasonable guidelines then everyone wins.

But everything must have its balance. While it's important to encourage a happy workplace and not to stifle creativity, a simple set of easy-to-understand and implement guidelines on internet usage could be the answer.

It's clearly about finding a sense of proportion between being all controlling and empowering employees to do the best they can for their customers, themselves, and ultimately the business.

The opportunities, if you're able to harness the online enthusiasm of your employees, could be significant.