There’s a new academic study out that focuses on employee productivity. According to the study Freedom to Surf done by university researchers in Australia, workers are more productive when they take short, periodic web surfing breaks at work. Apparently, taking a mental break by surfing the web allows employees to get back to work refreshed and refocused.

Other studies have shown that use of the Internet at work greatly reduces productivity, distracting employees from their work and draining company resources (especially if someone is streaming Internet radio). Not to mention that employees may visit web sites with malicious content, exposing your network to security threats like viruses and network intrusions, or web sites with inappropriate content, exposing your company to legal and regulatory liability.

All of these studies raise some thought-provoking business issues: how much Internet access do you allow employees to have, and do you filter or monitor any of it?

Those are loaded questions that require some thought. Before you go uninstall the web browser from every computer in the office, it’s good to take a step back. It may not be the best idea to fully restrict online access - after all, it may be true that people are more productive with the Internet - but smart companies take security precautions.

One useful security tool is web content filtering, part of TelePacific’s OneSecure managed security service. The web content filtering feature provides fast and transparent real-time inspection of Internet traffic to keep your network, company and employees safe. You set the parameters of what you want to allow - maybe it’s okay for employees to access personal web mail, but you don’t want to allow online shopping - and OneSecure will enforce those restrictions.

Web sites visited are compared to the OneSecure Rating Server, a master database of more than 26 million web sites sorted into 70 categories that is constantly updated. Sites that fall into any of the categories you’ve chosen are blocked. The categories include sites that commonly have spyware, viruses or illegal material, as well as those that may just disrupt productivity, and range from adult sites to gambling to those featuring violence or weapons to peer-to-peer sites. You can even block sports, online trading, travel and political sites. It’s all about protecting your network from security issues and protecting your company from liability for illegal or offensive content.

The best thing about OneSecure and its integrated web content filtering is that it is a managed service: you can set it and forget it, if you want to. It’s constantly updated with new protections and you will be notified if any issues arise. If you want to be more involved, you can view the dashboard to monitor current activity, pull customizable reports or change your settings.

Web content filtering is available as part of OneSecure, which integrates multiple layers of security into one suite: Firewall, Intrusion Prevention System, Antivirus, SPAM Filtering, Web Content Filtering, VPN and Desktop Antivirus. Depending on the size of your company, you may be spending up to 10 percent of your IT budget on security. With OneSecure, you can focus your IT resources on core business requirements and not worry about security.