Goldbricking (also called cyberloafing or cyberslacking) is the practice of doing less work than one is able to, while maintaining the appearance of working. The term originates from the confidence trick of applying a gold coating to a brick of worthless metal—while the worker may appear industrious on the surface, in reality they are less valuable. A 1999 report estimated that cyberslacking cost employers in the United States $1 billion a year in computer resources. Instances of goldbricking increased markedly when broadband Internet connections became commonplace in workplaces. Before that, the slow speed of

dial-up Dial-up Internet access is a form of Internet access that uses the facilities of the public switched telephone network (PSTN) to establish a connection to an Internet service provider (ISP) by dialing a telephone number on a conventional telepho ...

connections meant that spending work time browsing on the internet was rarely worthwhile. Many firms employ

surveillance software Spyware (a portmanteau for spying software) is software with malicious behaviour that aims to gather information about a person or organization and send it to another entity in a way that harms the user—for example, by violating their privac ...

to track employees' Internet activity in an effort to limit liability and improve

productivity Productivity is the efficiency of production of goods or services expressed by some measure. Measurements of productivity are often expressed as a ratio of an aggregate output to a single input or an aggregate input used in a production proces ...

. Goldbricking became a mainstream topic when Yahoo! announced in late February 2013 that it was banning

remote work Remote work, also called work from home (WFH), work from anywhere, telework, remote job, mobile work, and distance work is an employment arrangement in which employees do not commute to a central place of work, such as an office building, ware ...

because it discovered its remote workers were not logging into the corporate VPN often enough.

Alternative views

Research has indicated that permitting employees to utilize computer resources for personal use actually increases productivity. A study by the

National University of Singapore The National University of Singapore (NUS) is a national public research university in Singapore. Founded in 1905 as the Straits Settlements and Federated Malay States Government Medical School, NUS is the oldest autonomous university in the c ...

entitled ''Impact of Cyberloafing on Psychological Engagement'' concluded that using the internet for personal use served the same purpose as a coffee break and helped workers concentrate and stay engaged. New research also shows that employees might use cyberloafing to cope with abusive and stressful conditions in the workplace, when they perceive that they are being treated unfairly (disrespected or given unreasonable deadlines)''.''

References

{{Reflist Employee relations

Alternative views

See also

References