20% of the U.S workers’ working time is wasted in surfing the internet and chatting online; in specific, an online survey of 2,057 employees by online compensation company Salary.com found about six in every 10 workers admit to wasting time at work with the average employee wasting 1.7 hours of a typical 8.5 hour working day. Personal Internet use topped the list as the leading time-wasting activity according to 34% of respondents, with 20.3% then listing socializing with co-workers and 17% conducting personal business as taking up time.

This is by no means an exclusive story of America; in fact, it is shared by many other countries all over the world. Those net-addicted workers who spend part of their office hours in non-work related online activities are undoubtedly dragging down the workplace productivity. Then how to plug the problem?

At present, the seemingly “most effective” way agreed and carried out by many companies is relying on some technological surveillance means to track the employees’ use of the office internet. But are those policies really “effective”? Unfortunately, issues related to workplace privacy are triggered due to such special monitoring mechanisms, which in turn, induce to unwanted and costly litigations. Therefore, these policies, in the long run, must fail to boost the declining workplace productivity. Then, can we find a way out that can turn out to be really effective?

“Such temptation is always present, especially in fields of employment where one experiences a lot of down time.” said by a supervisor of a chicago-based trading company. Attention please! The key words here are “down time”. It is exactly due to too many “down time” at the employee’s disposal that the private use of office internet becomes easily available. Thus, can the “down time” be cut down? Or can the time of finishing each specific task be at the managers’ disposal? If this is possible, then the workplace productivity is really promising to be rejuvenated.

Fortunately, BPOVIA virtual assistant is very likely to make the dream come true. BPOVIA is the leading virtual assistant firm in the world. BPOVIA is the first and only virtual assistant service provider in the world ever won the prestigious "Top 100 global companies in 2008" awards by Red Herring magazine and "2008 Red Herring Asia 100 Most Promising Technology Companies" Awards. By hiring such a virtual assistant from BPOVIA, working time can be saved to a great extent! This is because the VA’s working time is totally at the manager’s own disposal. The manager can add, modify, cancel, or suspend any service at any time based on his/her business demand. Furthermore, it is even more cost-saving, for there will be no other extra fees such as staff welfare and taxes compared with a full-time employee.

A double-edged sword as the internet is, it is always likely to reduce costs and increase profits for companies. The success secret, however, lies in those wise users who can make the best use of the most efficient on-line assistance services to create themselves the most profits.