Dive Brief:

• This year, more employees are taking advantage of those holiday sales and discounts by shopping online at work, says CareerBuilder. Cyber Monday, the human capital management company’s annual survey, found that 53% of workers are shopping online at work, up from 50% in 2015. Of that number, 43% spend an hour or more buying items.
• The survey also found that even more at-work shoppers, 49%, are using their smartphones and other electronic devices to shop, up from last year’s 42%. CareerBuilder said that 11% of employers said they fired someone for shopping on the job, down from 12% in 2015. More than half, 54%, said they blocked some websites from employees, up 2% from last year.
• Cyber Monday reviewed and ranked the biggest shopping at work offenders by industry. IT workers topped the list at 68%, followed by financial services at 65% and sales at 63%.

Dive Insight:

Employees may be tempted by blockbuster sales on Cyber Mondays. Many are looking for ways to save time in their busy schedules and think shopping at work is the answer. Employers might want to get quantitative measures on how much productivity is lost on Cyber Mondays or during the entire holiday shopping season, beyond lunchtime and breaks, to find out whether stricter policies are needed.

The relatively low number of companies in the survey that forbid and enforce rules on non work-related activities is surprising and reflects growing attitudes toward work-life flexibility. This could also mean that shopping online at work is vertically widespread. If company higher-ups are shopping online at work, enforcing companywide restrictions on such activity might be difficult.