Online Holiday Shopping from Work: 50% Do It

Econintersect:  A survey by Harris Interactive on behalf of CareerBuilder, a leading employment and recruiting solutions company, has determined that more than a quarter of all workers plan to shop from work on just the first two working days after Thanksgiving.  More than 6,300 respondents were contacted (2,400 employers and 3,900 employees).  For the entire holiday season nearly a half of all wokeres will be shopping on line during working hours.  Econintersect supposes that this may actually be less lost productivity that might have been experienced 30 years ago when the corresponding practice was to sneak out for two hour (or longer) lunches until all the stocking stuffers were acquired.  However, many employers do take steps to limit the time spent on personal activities during working hours.

Here is the full press release from Careerbuilder.com via PRNewswire:

CHICAGO, Nov. 23, 2012 /PRNewswire/ — Using the Internet to knock items off the holiday shopping list is likely to continue to be the trend. According to CareerBuilder’s “Cyber Monday” Internet usage study, 49 percent of workers expect to spend some time in the office this holiday season shopping online, on par with past years. More than a quarter of workers plan to shop from work either on Black Friday (12 percent) or Cyber Monday (16 percent). The survey of more than 2,400 employers and more than 3,900 workers nationwide was conducted online by Harris Interactive^© from August 13 to September 6, 2012.

Shopping from the office is most common in the weeks leading up to December 25, with 30 percent saying they’re most likely to shop from work after December 7. The study also revealed that a higher percentage of women (43 percent) have shopped online while at the office compared to men (36 percent).

“Employers tend to be more lenient when it comes to workers using breaks or down time to get online and—in some cases—take care of some online shopping,” said Rosemary Haefner, vice president of human resources at CareerBuilder. “However, it is the employee’s responsibility to know and adhere to their company’s policy regarding Internet usage. Be aware of how you spend time on the Web, and don’t let your holiday shopping get in the way of your productivity.”

While most companies have an official Internet use policy for their employees, workers often go online for non-work related reasons.

• 25 percent of employers have fired someone for using the Internet for non-work related activity.
• 7 percent of hiring managers have fired an employee for holiday shopping at work.
• 53 percent of employers block employees from accessing certain websites.

Haefner reminds workers who use their work computers for social media and personal email to be responsible and police themselves when it comes to appropriate Internet usage at work.

• 45 percent of workers are connected with co-workers on social media.
• 11 percent of hiring managers have fired an employee for something they posted on social media.
• 30 percent of employers monitor their employees’ email use.
• 11 percent of hiring managers have fired someone for sending non-work related emails.

Survey Methodology

This survey was conducted online within the U.S. by Harris Interactive^© on behalf of CareerBuilder among 2,494 U.S. hiring managers and human resource professionals and 3,976 workers (employed full-time, not self-employed, non-government) ages 18 and over between August 13 and September 6, 2012 (percentages for some questions are based on a subset, based on their responses to certain questions). With pure probability samples of 2,494 and 3,976, one could say with a 95 percent probability that the overall results have a sampling error of +/-1.96 and +/-1.55 percentage points, respectively. Sampling error for data from sub-samples is higher and varies.

About CareerBuilder®

CareerBuilder is the global leader in human capital solutions, helping companies target and attract their most important asset – their people. Its online career site, CareerBuilder.com®, is the largest in the United States with more than 24 million unique visitors, 1 million jobs and 49 million resumes. CareerBuilder works with the world’s top employers, providing resources for everything from employment branding and talent intelligence to recruitment support. More than 10,000 websites, including 140 newspapers and broadband portals such as MSN and AOL, feature CareerBuilder’s proprietary job search technology on their career sites. Owned by Gannett Co., Inc. (NYSE:GCI), Tribune Company and The McClatchy Company (NYSE:MNI), CareerBuilder and its subsidiaries operate in the United States, Europe, South America, Canada and Asia. For more information, visit www.careerbuilder.com.

John Lounsbury