Time To Treat Your Employees Like Adults And Professionals

There’s a needle-like frustration to be met with the message “this website is blocked.” If it happens once, well, move on, and hopefully it wasn’t something you really needed to look at.

But, if you encounter that message consistently in the process of doing your job, that frustration will mount, causing you to write an article on the topic.

I’m going to tackle this topic rationally, first with a discussion of what using a website-blocker indicates to an employee, then the practical effects, and lastly alternatives.

The main issue is that, by blocking websites, you’re telling the employee that you don’t trust them. You don’t trust their judgment in their need to look at a website, that they’ll manage their time effectively, or that they won’t do their work without you to direct them.

There’s a particular level of parent-child relationship with that last reason. It’s not too far off from saying that the employee isn’t an adult, at least not enough to avoid the temptations of fun websites.