New research finds it takes more than a policy to stop employeesfrom cyberloafing, wasting time at work on the Web.

Between 60% and 80% of people's time on the Web at work hasnothing to do with work, which means cyber loafing drains productivity .

What's more, it could put companies in legal trouble whenemployees conduct illegal activity or unacceptable behavior likeviewing pornography on workplace computers.

John Urgin, assistant professor of accounting at Kansas StateUniversity in Manhattan, and John Pearson, associate professor ofmanagement at Southern Illinois University in Carbondale, conducteda research study that found company polices with sanctions that areconsistently enforced can help stop employee cyberloafing.

Their study will be published in the journal, Computers inHuman Behavior.

After surveying office workers and university students, theresearchers discovered both older and young workers waste time onthe Web but in different ways.

“Older people are doing things like managing their finances,while young people found it much more acceptable to spend time onsocial networking sites like Facebook,” Ugrin said.

Although threats of termination and detection mechanisms areeffective deterrents against cyberloafing, they may not beenough.

“We found that for young people, it was hard to get them tothink that social networking was unacceptable behavior,” Urginsaid. “Just having a policy in place did not change their attitudesor behavior at all. Even when they knew they were being monitored,they still did not care.

The researchers found that the only way to change people'sattitudes is to provide them with information about other employeeswho were reprimanded.

However, that strategy can lower workplace morale.

“People will feel like Big Brother is watching them, socompanies need to be careful when taking those types of actions,”Urgin said.