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The vast majority (92 percent of IT administrators admit to seeing troublesome habits among office workers using company computers, according to the findings of TeamViewer’s IT Admin Behavioral Study.
The most common thing IT admins see is the browsing of social media websites (82 percent) followed by opening inappropriate email attachments (57 percent), downloading games (52 percent), and plugging in unauthorized USB devices (51 percent).
In addition, half of IT admins surveyed said they see employees plugging in unauthorized personal devices, 45 percent witnessed illegal downloads, such as pirating movies, music or software, and 39 percent observed employees looking for other jobs while in the office.
“While most companies are okay with their employees using company equipment for activities such as browsing social media sites the results of our study reveal that these actions can cause problems down the line,” Kornelius Brunner, head of product management at TeamViewer, said in a statement. “Businesses should be prepared to handle such situations especially with valuable company data on the line.”
The survey indicated these bad habits have their share of repercussions, with 90 percent of IT administrators saying that they’ve witnessed problems to company equipment because of these actions including more than three-quarters (77 percent) of IT admins citing viruses.
Slow computers (74 percent), crashed computers (55 percent), mass popups (48 percent) and an inability to open email (33 percent) were among the list of other issues IT admins have been dealing with.
While leisure activity on company equipment might be inevitable, 94 percent of IT admins said that there are things that can help mitigate these problems by making their jobs easier including, better security software, which was cited by two-thirds (66 percent) of respondents.
Other efforts IT admins said could be made was using remote access software to fix problems (47 percent), installing disk cleanup software (44 percent), offering automatic backup solutions 40 percent and giving employees the ability to telecommute (29 percent).
Negative emotions are also felt among IT administrators due to the bad habits of office workers including feeling frustrated (70 percent), angry (60 percent) and discouraged (32 percent). Twelve percent even said that these bad habits have them feeling like they want to quit their job.
The survey also revealed some of the inefficiencies identified by the survey, which revealed that 23 percent of IT workers are now putting in between 10 – 20 extra hours in a given week with 4 percent even saying that it has caused them to work more than 40 extra hours in a week.
In addition, 41 percent of IT administrators even estimate that they walk between one and 9 miles in a given month traveling from desk-to-desk and floor-to-floor during their daily tasks.