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Websense, a global leader in web security and web filtering productivity software, said new software from the company will enable companies to balance employee productivity and manage bandwidth usage, during the World Cup.

The software allows organisations to apply flexible policies for employee Internet use as well as desktop streaming media applications.

“The FIFA World Cup takes place only once every four years and is truly a global event that puts soccer on the centre stage,” said Michael Newman, vice president, general counsel for Websense. “Websense web security and filtering software provides an effective solution for organisations to allow their employees to enjoy the World Cup but remain productive during work hours. Organisations are able to maintain a work/life balance with their employees to uphold a positive and efficient work environment.”

Beginning tomorrow, in Germany, 32 teams from around the globe will participate in the tournament, playing for the distinction of winning the FIFA World Cup title on July 9. Additional interest in this year’s tournament will be generated by the fact that 2006 has seven first time nations playing, the most since the initial World Cup in 1930.

Since many games during the month-long tournament take place during the work day, employees may be drawn to visit sports sites for score updates, video clips and game summaries during business hours.

Since June 2005, sports-related websites have seen over a 56 percent growth, increasing from nearly 329,800 to more than 515,780 today, with many offering real-time game scores, player statistics and up-to-the-minute analysis. With the massive number of sports websites and online video available, IT administrators can expect to see a considerable drain on employee productivity and network bandwidth during the 2006 World Cup.

According to the recently released Websense Web@ Work study, conducted by Harris Interactive, 65 percent of men surveyed who access the Internet at work admitted to accessing non work-related websites during work hours versus 58 percent of women. Additionally, of those men, 42 percent admitted to accessing sports-related websites at work with 18 percent of women declaring the same.

To lessen employee distractions, Websense allows organisations to institute flexible policies to effectively manage employee Internet use. The software gives IT administrators the ability to control access to Internet categories, such as sports, gambling and streaming media, during anticipated high levels of traffic.

It also offers IT manager’s flexible options to accommodate a productive balance with their employees and web surfing requests. Patented flexible filtering options such as time based quotas allow employees a definable amount of time to access certain categories, such as sports sites, during events like the 2006 World Cup.

Furthermore, organisations can allow access to these seasonally high demand sites, to enable occasional score and statistic checking, but not allow bandwidth intensive file types such as streaming audio and video to be accessed.