Charge Fines For Computer User Foul-Ups

Recently, a hospital system based in Indianopolis called Clarian Health announced that it was going to start taking money from its employees' paychecks if they didn't meet certain physical standards. I don't think Clarian went far enough -- I think that employees should be penalized for violations involving their technical health as well.Clarian's penalties involve subtracting $5 or $10 from the paychecks of employees who don't meet company standards involving cholesterol levels, blood pressure, body mass index, etc. Many people might think that this is a violation of the employees' rights as individuals, or might think that a company might get further with a carrot than a stick.

But as long as you're intent on rapping staff knuckles for costing the company more money on its insurance, why not also charge them for costing the company more money on IT? For example, tell employees that they will:

Lose $5 each time they click on a link in any e-mail with a subject line like, "Ebay New Unpaid Item" or "You've received an ecard from a School friend!" Lose $5 each time they go on a porn or game site. Lose another $5 each time they have to call IT to clean their system of spyware. Lose $5 each time they demand the IT staffer show up immediately for an emergency, and then when the staffer shows up, say, "Oops! I forgot to hit the Esc key/forgot to hit Enter/accidentally clicked on the wrong thing. Never mind. Thanks anyway." Lose $10 for clicking on any pop-up that offers to clean your computer and another $10 for installing the software. Lose $20 each time they let their visiting 12-year-old surf on the office computer while they run to that meeting with the boss. Lose $30 each time they take a laptop home without making sure all security features -- encryption, keywords, etc. -- are active. Lose another $30 if they take home a thumb drive or disc with sensitive information on it (unless it's also got encryption and other security measures). Unfortunately, judging from some of the computer users I know, there are some employees -- probably including a manager or two -- who would, were this system put in place, end up pretty much without a paycheck. So maybe it isn't the best idea. Still...