Nearly three quarters of UK workplaces (74 percent) restrict their employees’ access to the Internet, according to a recent survey.

Seventy-one percent of offices surveyed have a filter for pornographic websites, with 52 percent of employees unable to access social networking sites such as Twitter or Facebook and 48 percent of employees unable to access their personal email. YouTube was blocked by 30 percent of employers, and news websites by 27 percent of offices only allow access to certain specific sites, and four percent only allow staff to use the company’s intranet – not even allowing search engines such as Google.

Of those employees who have restrictions in their Internet access, 30 percent claim they say this makes their job more difficult – and 82 percent say it makes their job more boring! Only six percent of employees surveyed said that they actually think it helps with their productivity at work.Maris Interiors Chairman Michael Howard said “It’s a difficult decision about blocking websites in the workplace – by doing so you have to balance employees’ productivity against their morale. At our company we restrict access to pornographic sites – hopefully this doesn’t affect their morale too much!”Survey by office design company Maris Interiors.

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