Companies That Shop Together Stay Together?

Hoping to keep employees productive during the busy, stress-filled holiday season? Let them shop online a few hours a week from the office, suggests the managers at Dell Computer Corp.

Besides giving workers time to fulfill their personal obligations, which will in turn make them more appreciative of their bosses for letting them better balance their lives, Dell officials say the shop-at-work gesture will benefit management too. How? By keeping them in the office.

Rather than running out to cross off their holiday checklists, which evolves into long lunches, late morning arrivals or afternoon disappearances, employees who feel they can freely browse the Internet will more likely stay put, or so goes Dell’s theory.

“(Bosses) can pull their businesses through the holidays smoothly by keeping their employees motivated and taking advantage of the technologies available to them,” said Terry Sadowski, vice president of Dell’s small-business division in Austin, Texas. “Keeping momentum and productivity high at the office can be a challenge” during the holidays, he said.

Of course, employees will shop online during work hours, whether they are permitted to or not. Nielsen/NetRatings Inc. estimates the number of active “at-work” Web users at 31 million, with the average monthly duration of access at least 23 hours. The most popular time to cybershop: between 10 a.m. and 12:30 p.m.

“Obviously, there are going to be productivity issues related to employees shopping on the clock,” said David McCoy, chief executive of 8e6 Technologies, a provider of Internet access management solutions. “The problem is only going to get bigger, so companies need to get a handle on what their usage policy will be.”