Have your managers ever had to fire someone for reading dirty Web sites or sending racy e-mails? If not, they might need to pay closer attention.

More than 50% of companies have had to fire employees for misusing e-mail or the Web, according to a recent survey by the American Management Association (AMA).

Most of the managers surveyed said porn or other inappropriate content was the culprit. Other cases just involved employees who were wasting too much time.

Same goes for e-mail — in many cases, employees were fired for using offensive language, while others were sending too many personal messages. Other employees were canned because they sent confidential info to the wrong people.

Keep a close watch?

One thing that mean: A lot of companies are watching what their employees are doing with their computers.

Why are they paying close attention? There are a few reasons companies monitor computer and e-mail use and strictly enforce policies. Three of the big ones:

• Avoiding lawsuits - Companies have been sued for sexual harassment and discrimination because of the presence of pornography in the workplace, or because employees forwarded e-mails with racial or sexual jokes.
• Conserving resources - Watching online videos or streaming music takes up valuable bandwidth and makes the Web slower for employees who are actually trying to do work.
• Protecting against viruses - Stopping employees from visiting seedy Web sites or downloading content is one step toward keeping viruses off the company’s network.

There are also reasons companies avoid placing strict controls or monitoring use too closely. Obviously, some types of surfing have no place in the office. But many employers are reluctant to restrict all personal use as long as people are getting their jobs done.

What to do?

There’s no easy answer, but here are some things to consider when deciding how to handle employees and their computers:

HR and IT need to cooperate - IT doesn’t always the know the legal risks workplace technology poses, just as HR might not understand all the technical difficulties caused by excessive surfing. For a policy to work, the departments need to communicate with each other.

Managers need to watch performance - If someone’s wasting too much time online, it’s likely the symptom of a problem, rather than a problem in itself. Managers have to distinguish between employees who use the Internet to take a break from working hard, and those who use it to avoid working at all.

Complaints must be handled quickly - If someone brings a complaint about pornography or offensive e-mail, it must be dealt with immediately. Those are just as lawsuit-worthy as other forms of harassment, but can be even more dangerous since they create permanent electronic evidence.

Tags: computer use, e-mail, harassment, porn