City of Carrollton Reduces Employee Surfing

When Leonard Martin was the city manager of Edmond, Okla., he read reports such as "Workers spend an average of 8.3 hours per week surfing the Internet" (eMarketer). He suspected that some employees may be taking advantage of the city's Internet access for excessive or abusive personal activities.

Many city managers are concerned about security, ethics, legal liability and bandwidth consumption. According to ePolicy Institute, the most common and costly eRisks employers face include lost productivity, wasted computer resources, and public embarrassment.

After researching Internet monitoring tools, Martin determined that filters and security measures offered by most companies do not solve the problem of abuse. These tools use the "Big Brother" approach. He sought a system that encourages self-monitoring.

Martin consulted with Accountability International Inc. (AI) and became one of AI's beta customers.
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When Martin became city manager for the city of Carrollton, Texas, in 2001, he requested that AI install The Minitrax solution in city facilities. A visible real-time clock on users' desktops helps them self-monitor their Internet use. Web-tracking reports of visited sites are made available to the user and management.

Based on benchmarks conducted, The Minitrax solution continues to save the city of Carrollton 1.5 hours per user each day in Internet usage. The city is still at the low end of usage after 2.5 years: Thirty-five (35) minutes per day per person. The benefits in saved bandwidth and productivity have been substantial. The value of the time recaptured for city business is worth $4.8 million per year.

"After using The Minitrax solution in two city governments, I'm convinced that any organization that does not use it is overlooking a costly management issue," says Martin.