Topic8

Topic 8
Increase in teleworking and the virtual office by Sung-Hwan, Chun

Telework is a work arrangement where the employees don’t have to come to a central place of work. Instead, they commute and work using the telecommunication links. These telecommunications include not only internet as general, but also telephone, fax and video. But, usually the Teleworking is relied upon by the internet.

The virtual office is an internet office which allows clients to use using internet instead of using a physical office. This usually takes the form of websites and the customers could further communicate using fax, telephone, e-mail, and virtual meeting rooms.

Using Telework reduces the distance restriction of using a central place of work. The use of Telework would benefit largely to the employees who live far away from a central place of work, because this saves significant amounts of travel time and cost. Also, it allows more employability of parents with small children, and the handicapped.

Teleworking is seen as a solution to traffic congestion, because the employees don’t need to ride a car or train to come to the central place. Therefore, the passengers of train and road congestion at rush hour would be decreased. This would reduce the air pollution by decreasing the use of cars. Finally, by using Telework the employees could enjoy a great amount of freedom. In other words, the employees could relax in their sofas at home, with a warm coffee cup in their hands, and having a rest when they want. There will be no employers to constantly pressure, the only thing the employees need to do is do the assignments given by the employee.

One would think that the main problem with this kind of Teleworking would be the management of employees. How would the employers know that the employee is doing their work, not playing around? The common solution for this is to give an assignment with a due time. For example the employer would sign an employee to type up 500 words essay by lunch. Then, the employer could check in at lunch by e-mail or by other telecommunication to see if the employee has finished it.

Therefore, the employer can’t check the real progress of the employee, so the employer doesn’t know whether the employee was playing around ‘till last hour of the lunch and finished the 500 words essay or whether the employee took all its time to finish the essay. But, this doesn’t really matter because all the employer wants is that the assignment is well-written and done. If the assignment was not done, then the employees would find themselves unemployed.

The major problem however, is the security and the management of the telecommunication to work properly. There might be problems caused by miss typed information, for example, the employer giving wrong assignments to wrong employee, or giving 700 words report instead of 500 words. Although this could be solved if the employer is cautious, it is a common mistake occurring because it is easier to make a mistake when we are using a machine rather than using our mouth.

The malfunctioning of the telecommunication would also be a big problem. For example, if the internet was down, then, the employers would have a trouble sending the assignments or information to employees. Or even worse, if the employee’s computer got a virus and it erased all the reports he wrote, and then he would be fired because employer thought he didn’t finish the assignments. This would be very unfair for the employee, and the reasoning out that he got a virus would not really work, because the employer might think that the employee is blaming it on the virus. The solution to this is to maintain a high security system, which would cost the employers, and also to maintain better telecommunication devices.

The virtual office would have all the advantages the Telework have and also saves the employer a lot of money, because the cost for a central office is not required. The virtual offices have a productive customer services through telecommunicating, which is efficient and comfortable.

The problem with the virtual office though is that the intranet access to the telecommuter may be slow due to telephone or modem connections. Use of groupware, browsing, and downloading also may be slow due to the same reason. Therefore, the customers might face great discomfort using this.

The solution to this is difficult, because this is dependent on the connection speed of the customers. Therefore the company might lose some of the customers because of this.