Here is another aspect of this discussion:
Say you have 10 employees... some have been with the company 5 months, some 12 years, and all points in between. These employees have a range or work ethics... some will give you 110%, while others do just what is necessary to get by. If a "slaker" spends 20%, 30%, or 40% of his or her "spare" time at work surfing the Net, and the productive, dedicated employee sees it, you have a problem......
"Here I am working my butt off, barely taking a lunch break, and being a good employee for 10 years while this clown gets to play all day long.
The slacker is a salesperson
The worker bee is a bookkeeper
Oh... and to make matters worse, the salesman makes way more than the bookkeeper since he gets commission on top of a base salary. The morale of the bookkeeper goes in the toilet, and she "whispers" the offense to anyone who will listen. The next thing you know "everybody's doing it", and you have, not one, but 10 employees wasting as much time as possible on the internet. an average of 10 employees a day (retail is open 7 days a week) at, let's say, an average of $15.00 an hour (not to mention worker's comp, matching taxes, etc.). to keep the business operational is:
$150.00 per hour ... x 8 hours a day =
$1200.00 a day .... x 7 days a week
10% loss in productivity (that's being generous) = $120.00 loss per day
$120.00 per day X 361 days (we are closed 4 days a year) =
$43,000 + Loss per year
That comes out of my pocket. That's my money. If you were the employer, and you lost that much money just because people were surfing the net, what would you do? Say it ain't so? If you worked 8 hours today, and you spent 1 hour and 20 minutes surfing the Net, you spent 10% of your work time for personal reasons. I may seem harsh, or like some crotchety old man, but I have been in this game for over 20 years. If it's not the computer, then it's card games, television, talking to the boyfriend, or whatever. It all comes out in the end. The reality is that, in the eyes of an employer, it's one frustrating aspect of having employees. I don't care if an employee needs to take some time once in a while for personal things. I'm probably the most leinient employer I know. But all too often I see abuse of opportunity in the workplace and people taking advantage of downtime. I could stay busy 24 hours a day at my store and never run out of things that need to be done.
I don't expect employees to look at the business with the same eyes that the employer does, but they should give a full day's work for a full days pay. I guess I was brought up differently. My dad was 50 when I was born, and he taught me old school. In my observations over the last 30 years of being self-employed I can honestly say that, with each new year I see less and less of the days when, even if the boss wasn't around, employees would give it their all.