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53% of Employees Are Using Time at Work to Shop Online, Increase From Last Year, Finds Annual CareerBuilder Survey

  • Forty-nine percent of employees use their personal smart phones or tablets to shop at work, an increase from 42 percent last year
  • Nearly one in four employers say they’ve fired someone for using the Internet for non-work related activity, down slightly from last year


CHICAGO and ATLANTA – November 22, 2016 – In the next few weeks workers will be tempted to peruse the Internet for killer discounts, but they need to remember, the boss may be watching. According to CareerBuilder’s annual Cyber Monday survey, more than half of workers (53 percent) say they spend at least some work time holiday shopping on the Internet, up 3 percent from last year. Of this group, 43 percent spend an hour or more doing so, compared to 42 percent from last year.

Employers aren’t turning a blind eye to this. Eleven percent of employers say they’ve fired someone for holiday shopping on the Internet while at work (compared to 12 percent last year), and 54 percent say their organization blocks employees from accessing certain websites from work — down 2 percent from last year.

The national survey was conducted online by Harris Poll on behalf of CareerBuilder from August 11 to September 7, 2016, and included a representative sample of 3,133 full-time workers and 2,379 hiring managers and human resource professionals across industries and company sizes in the private sector.

“Employers realize that you are going to be tempted by the flurry of notifications regarding discounts throughout the day on Cyber Monday,” said Rosemary Haefner, chief human resources officer at CareerBuilder. “But it’s up to you to self-police yourself and schedule your time to make sure you’re getting your job done and productivity isn’t hurt while you save money shopping online.”

IT Leads Other Industries for Online Shopping

As mobile technology continues to have a growing presence in the workplace, more workers are using their gadgets to shop. Forty-nine percent of employees use their personal smart phones or tablets to shop, an increase from 42 percent last year and 27 percent in 2014.

Whether desktop or mobile, a higher percentage of workers in information technology and financial services industries online shop compared to those in other industries:

  • Information Technology: 68 percent
  • Financial Services: 65 percent
  • Sales: 63 percent
  • Leisure & Hospitality: 54 percent
  • Health Care: 53 percent
  • Transportation: 42 percent
  • Manufacturing: 40 percent
  • Retail: 42 percent

Employers Aren’t Ignoring Employees’ Internet Activity

A third of employers (33 percent) said that even if performance isn’t affected, they care if employees spend time on non-work related emails and websites. With the ever-looming distractions offered by technology, many have taken stronger measures to prevent loss of productivity this year, including:

  • 35 percent of employers say their organization monitors the sites employees visit, compared to 36 percent last year.
  • 52 percent of employers restrict employees from posting on behalf of the company on social media, and 29 percent have adopted stricter policies in this regard over the past year (compared to 55 and 32 percent last year, respectively).
  • 24 percent say they’ve fired someone for using the Internet for non-work related activity, and 17 percent have fired an employee for something they posted on social media (compared to 28 and 18 percent last year, respectively).

Survey Methodology

The survey was conducted online within the U.S. by Harris Poll on behalf of CareerBuilder among 2,379 hiring and human resource managers and 3,133 full-time employees ages 18 and over (employed full-time, not self-employed, non-government) between August 11 and September 7, 2016. Percentages for some questions are based on a subset, based on their responses to certain questions. With pure probability samples of 2,379 and 3,133, one could say with a 95 percent probability that the overall results have sampling errors of +/- 2.01 and +/- 1.75 percentage points, respectively. Sampling error for data from sub-samples is higher and varies.

About CareerBuilder®

CareerBuilder is the only end-to-end human capital management company covering the entire candidate lifecycle and employee lifecycle for businesses. As the global leader in its industry, CareerBuilder specializes in cutting-edge HR software as a service to help companies with every step of talent acquisition and management. CareerBuilder works with top employers across industries, providing solutions for talent and labor market analytics, job distribution, candidate sourcing, tracking, onboarding, HRIS, benefits administration and compliance. It also operates leading job sites around the world. Owned by TEGNA Inc. (NYSE:TGNA), Tribune Media (NYSE:TRCO) and McClatchy (NYSE:MNI), CareerBuilder and its subsidiaries operate in the United States, Europe, South America, Canada and Asia. For more information, visit www.careerbuilder.com.

Media Contact

Ladan Nikravan
312.698.0538 x70538
ladan.nikravan@careerbuilder.com
 http://www.twitter.com/CareerBuilderPR


CareerBuilder Media Contact
For all media inquiries and interview requests, contact:

Jennifer Grasz
(P) 773-527-1164
(E) jennifer.grasz@careerbuilder.com