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And this is why we have a GPO that locks the background to a corporate image.
I think it's nice if people can set their own background picture. They can put a picture of their pets or family members which lowers the stress.
A better policy would be to hire people who can actually do basic things with the thing they'll be working 8 hours a day with.
One place I worked they happened to roll out a desktop background group policy while I was there and I learned that one person would open the image they wanted as their background in an image viewer cirst first and leave it open while they opened everything else for the day so they could pretend their preferred background was still their background.
Honestly I'm of two minds on setting a background as a group policy, because on one hand having a set corporate-friendly background is good for maintaining a professional look, I've really yet to see any inappropriate backgrounds amongst the too many places and people I've supported that dont lock down backgrounds. Like at worst its sometimes awkward pictures of someone's loved ones that are just really bad photos, but usually if they have set something it's something that means something to them so it's a nice little touch of personalization that might be the thing that helps them make it through the day
having a set corporate-friendly background is good for maintaining a professional look
That kind of depends. When meeting with customers it might be preferred. But in most companies most of the computer screens are only seen by a handful of people who already work at the company.
I’ve really yet to see any inappropriate backgrounds
Inappropriate backgrounds would fall under the general inappropriate rules. Like watching porn at work. I've never seen that.
it’s something that means something to them
It might even be a nice icebreaker at times. Like a vacation picture could spark a nice little talk about the destination.
Yeah I think if I were in a decision making position and that was a decision to make, I'd include a standard corporate desktop image in my standard computer config but only enforce it by policy on customer-facing PCs
When you're working for Heinz, is it a mustard bottle?
Yes, but a bit more artistic than a jpeg from a search engine.