Scribd
Upload
425 views

In Company 3.0 Pre-Intermediate Case Study Worksheet 1

IN COMPANY PRE-INT WORKSHEET

Uploaded by

Karlita Ruela
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
425 views

In Company 3.0 Pre-Intermediate Case Study Worksheet 1

IN COMPANY PRE-INT WORKSHEET

Uploaded by

Karlita Ruela
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
You are on page 1/ 2

CASE STUDY

INTERNET ACCESS
1 Discuss the questions in groups.
• Do you have free access to the Internet at work?
• Is this an important issue in your work?
• Which of the four groups in the monster.co.uk survey below would you be in?

Do you have/use Internet access at work?


1
A 39% 267 votes for Yes, a high-speed access with more than 2 Mbit/s

B 37% 254 votes for Yes, I use an always-on connection (e.g. DSL)

C 17% 117 votes for No, I don’t use the Internet at work

D 5% 40 votes for Yes, but with a modem only (narrow band)

Total: 678 votes

2 Read the article and answer the questions.


a Why did Hywel Jenkins hire an IT expert?
b What kind of websites were the workers visiting?
c What was the position of the union representative? Do you think it is reasonable?
d What kind of things does Mr Fisher think companies should do to prevent these
situations from happening?

Office workers dismissed for


spending two hours a day on eBay™
Nine office workers have been dismissed by a Town
Council in South Wales after it was discovered that
they were spending up to two hours a day on eBay.
The workers’ Internet habit was discovered when an
IT expert was hired by the council to investigate the
amount of time its staff were spending on the Internet.
The Head of Financial Services at Neath Port Talbot
Council, Hywel Jenkins, said: ‘The main reason for
carrying out the investigations was the significant time
staff were spending on the Internet. The investigation
revealed that these Council employees were spending
their time on shopping, entertainment and BBC/
Sky-related websites.’
Union officials suggested that the Council should have
set up its IT system to prevent workers accessing sites
like eBay. Mark Fisher, a welfare officer with the union
Unison, said: ‘People get very involved in eBay, Sky
Sports and their favourite football teams. It happens
in many offices. Obviously we cannot justify people
spending a couple of hours of working time looking at
these sites, but temptation was put in their way.’
Mr Fisher emphasized the need for employers to take
preventative measures. He said: ‘We want the Council
to make changes to its IT system to stop workers getting
into this kind of trouble. We want firewalls installed to
prevent staff accessing these sorts of websites at any
time other than between the traditional lunch breaks
between noon and 2 pm. We are looking at how the
system can be tightened up so these people won’t get
dismissed.’ Source: http://technology.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/tech_and_web

In Company 3.0 Pre-intermediate © Macmillan Publishers Limited 2014 INTERNET ACCESS 1


CASE STUDY

3 Work in groups of four. You are going to take part in a meeting to decide on a policy
for Internet use in your company. Each take a role: A, B, C or D.

A B
The Human Resources manager The company boss
You see one of your company’s biggest challenges You are in favour of controlling access to the Internet
is to recruit talented, well-qualified, young people. and using filters to prevent users visiting non-
Potential employees of this type have been using authorized sites. You suspect that employees waste a
computers and mobile phones since they were born. lot of time looking at things like eBay™, Myspace and
Digital communication is part of their lives. They will Facebook. You can see two problems. On one hand,
hesitate to work for an employer who prohibits Internet if workers are using the Internet for personal use, then
access. For example, a lot of companies block instant they are not doing anything useful during paid time.
messaging because they see it as a distraction and On the other hand, if they are doing this when they
a waste of time, but for many people now, instant have finished all their tasks, it shows they have not
messaging is a legitimate work tool that allows quick been given enough work to do.
communication between colleagues and actually
saves money.

C D
The IT manager The R&D manager
This sounds like more work for you and you would You are against any use of filters because you are
prefer not to have to do it. You know that although it is convinced that for your department unlimited access to
possible to use filters to limit Internet access, there will the Internet is essential. You think it is sufficient to give
be some technical problems. People will constantly be every worker their own personal logon and then monitor
asking you to modify the system so that they can surf their Internet use. You also think that you should give
sites which are useful for their work. Another problem is workers clear rules about what they can do and what
that people will think they are being spied on and blame they can’t do. They should also be obliged to sign a
you for it. document accepting these conditions. In other words,
you believe it is important to treat people as adults and
not like naughty children who cannot be trusted.

4   CS1  Emily Pearce is business development director at Worldwide


Communications, an advertising company. The firm started in 1995 and has
65 employees who need email and Internet access. Emily explains how they
put an email and Internet policy in place. Listen and complete the missing
information.
a Every employee has to a copy of the policy.
b The policy covers personal use, between colleagues,
downloads and what happens if the rules are broken.
c Employees are allowed to access the Internet for personal use during
.
d emails which are not related to work are not allowed.
e Employees have to be careful what they .
f They once had a problem when an employee was sending emails to her
all day.

5 In your meeting in 3, did you create a similar policy to Emily’s?

In Company 3.0 Pre-intermediate © Macmillan Publishers Limited 2014 INTERNET ACCESS 2

You might also like