...Telecommuting: The New Way of Jobs in the Next Ten Years PHI210 – Critical Thinking March 11, 2012 Telecommuting will be the new way that jobs are performed in the next ten years. Telecommuting can be defined as working from a remote location, usually a home office, by electronically linking to a company. Allowing employees the option of telecommuting whether one or more days is an opportunity that most employees would take advantage. The origins of people telecommuting date as far back as the 19th century. The first person known to work from home or at a remote work site was a Boston Bank President. This Bank President was able to work from home by having a phone line strung from his office to his home, three blocks away. Later, in the year 1963, a computer programmer working on the Arpanet Project (Advanced Research Projects Agency Network) withdrew from the project to stay at home with his wife who was experiencing a difficult pregnancy. It was another programmer who suggested an additional phone line be installed in the home of the programmer attending to his ill wife so that he could complete his program from there. The practice of working from home was finally given the term name Telecommuting by Jack Nilles, a scientist working on a NASA satellite communications project in Los Angeles, in 1973. The target audience for this argument would be employees currently working both in the office and telecommuting environments...
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...Telecommuting: will it change the world? Telecommuting will have major effects in the worlds of work and family life. However, its biggest effect will be in the area of individual freedom, responsibility, and time management. Work and workplaces will alter dramatically. Offices may become smaller, as fewer desks are needed. There will be greater need for high-bandwidth connections to link the office and the home, and even homes to other homes, as other employees and supervisors also begin working at home. Hours spent commuting, traffic jams, and fights for parking should diminish, as workers make fewer journeys or work staggered hours. Family life will also change. Workers, both husbands and wives, can arrange their work around family commitments such as taking children to school, cooking, leisure activities, etc. However, households will also have to set aside areas for work - particularly if both spouses are telecommuting. However, although the ideas of more time at home and less time traveling are attractive, there are some drawbacks to telecommuting. People may feel unable to escape their work, and may even work longer or more unsocial hours. The quality of work may suffer because of the reduced face-to-face interaction with other employees. There may be delays if other workers are not immediately available. Telecommuters may feel isolated or unmotivated, or insecure about decisions. A major change will be in the way people think about work as a place or an institution...
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...Speaking Notes Title: Telecommuting – Working from Home Name: Leigh Ann Anderson Purpose: To persuade the audience how telecommuting is beneficial to them and try to convince them to consider it for their jobs. I. Introduction a. Imagine an alarm going off, waking you from a deep sleep. It’s 8 am on a Monday morning and, after much reluctance, you stumble out of bed, take a shower, brush your teeth, and trudge to your kitchen for your morning cup of coffee. Realizing it’s time to head off to work, you start your car and start making your way onto the interstate, only to be slowed down by a mile long stretch of heavy traffic. Looks like you might just be late for work and have to hear a long rant about it from your boss. Or maybe your car didn’t start at all this morning. The battery didn’t give you any notice that it was going to die on you. Perhaps you have a sick child and just find it impossible to make it into work or you’re feeling a bit under the weather yourself. b. These are just a few of the many circumstances that make telecommuting, or working from home, an attractive option. c. There will be those days where it may seem unlikely or even impossible that you will be able to make it to your job, but you still need to get work done in order to stay on track or even meet a deadline. d. In the hopes of persuading you to consider telecommuting, I will explain how beneficial it can be for you and provide you with tips with how to go...
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...Telecommuting is gaining popularity with many employers in the private and public sectors. They realize that there are cost benefits as well as the ability to increase their productivity, and quality of service. Today much focus is being placed on the ability of organizations in the private and public sectors to increase their productivity, and quality of service. As a result it is necessary to improve the well-being of employees, decrease unnecessary costs, and enhance the competitiveness of the organization. Given this, it is no accident that telecommuting, is one of the largest growing areas, in flexible alternative work schedules. The influence of globalization over all aspects, of many economies, also increases the effectiveness of telecommuting. Now, more than ever, many employees are taking advantage of completing their work in an alternative work environment. Advantages can be tangible, such as reduction in office space, or intangible, such as improved family life. Employee advantages include freedom, decreased clothing expenses, and increased moral. Employers also benefit from telecommuting. Reduced absenteeism, and reduced financial cost, are only two reasons why an employer should consider implementing a telecommuting program. In this paper I will discuss the advantages of teleworking and the disadvantages of teleworking. The questions I will address are: - What are the advantages and disadvantages of teleworking? It is important to carefully evaluate the telecommuting...
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...TELECOMMUTING RECOMMENDATIONS FOR HERITAGE FURNITURE COMPANY BASED ON A STUDY OF SIMILAR COMPANY EXPERIENCES Prepared for Mr. Jeff Green, President Heritage Furniture Company Street address State Prepared by Nicholas R. Jones Business, Education, Information Technology 336 Scott College of Business 200 North 7th Street Terre Haute, IN 47809-1902 June 30, 2011 TABLE OF CONTENTS Item Page EXECUTIVE SUMMARY OVERVIEW Telecommuting is working from an outside location away from a institution’s facilities through electronic communication with a centralized network database. Telecommuting works best with the companies that are routine and have easy to understand, clear goals. The term “telecommuting” was coined by Jack Nilles. Jack was an aerospace engineer working for the U.S. Air Force and NASA. (Mears, 2007) With the increase in technological advancements, telecommuting has become easier for businesses to implement the telecommuting process. As a result more and more businesses have put telecommuting into practice. In the year 2008 part-time telecommuting jobs rose to 35 percent, an increase of 9 percent from 26 percent in 2006. Full-time telecommuting jobs had only a 2 percent increase from 19 percent to 21 percent during the 2006 to 2008 period. (Claude, 2010) Many companies have seen this as a way to improve sales productivity...
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...a day throughout the country and is how some people “go” to work every day. Being able to work from home, hotel, or anywhere you can think of, is telecommuting or teleworking. Decades ago you might not have imagined anyone outside the sales staff being able to work from anywhere but the office building. However, with the advances made in technology, specifically that of the internet, people can potentially work from almost anywhere they might wish. The idea of working from home may be viewed as being fundamentally instinctive. William R. Mattox Jr., the vice president of the Family Research Council said, “technologies such as computers and fiber optics could create a ‘neo-agrarian technical revolution’ that would put workers back in their homes, as they were before the 19th century Industrial Revolution lured them away from their farms (Clark).” In essence, telecommuting can be viewed as a natural process by which we have functioned historically and are now in the process of reverting back to our natural ways. Advances in technology have closed the gaps between homes, offices, towns, cities, and continents by building electronic bridges using the information super highway to catapult society into the Information Age. The transition from office to home must be transparent to the customer (Business Plugs into Telecommuting: Bringing Work to People rather than People to Work) and can be completed by ensuring the individual has all the amenities of the corporate office,...
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...IMPLEMENTING A TELEWORK POICY WITHIN THE MARINE CORPS TO REDUCE COST AND IMPROVE WORKFORCE SATISFACTION Prepared for Jerry Lewis, Deputy Director of Programs and Resources, United States Marine Corps Prepared by December 12, 2011 MEMORANDUM TO: Jerry Lewis, Deputy Director of Programs and Resources FROM: Name, Programs and Resources Analyst DATE: December 12, 2011 SUBJECT: Implementing an Organizational Telework Policy Here is the research report that has been completed in response to the Government Efficiencies Working Groups’ recommendations. While the Marine Corps does not currently have a successful telework policy implemented at this time, but we currently have a partial capability from a technology standpoint. This puts us in situation that is ripe with opportunities to change the organization’s work environment in ways that will benefit all parties involved. With many new changes in the information technology solutions available in the market place it is now possible to do work anywhere and at any time. The implementation of a strategy to take advantage of this change in the work environment can lead to quantifiable savings in real estate costs and improve the employee work life balance. Improved energy savings and a decrease in building costs are organizational benefits from the implementation of a teleworking policy within the organization. Current Information Technology Systems should be reviewed to determine if they could be redesigned...
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...is a helpful tool for business or just another source of complications. This paper is aimed to address practical issues related to the virtual office’s impact on employee work-life balance and business sustainability. Definitions of the virtual office, telecommuting, business sustainability, and other important terms will be given. Different pros and cons of using the virtual office for employees (work-life balance) and for organizations (business sustainability) will be presented reviewed and compared. Finally, the summarized conclusion will answer the main question of this topic: “is the virtual office a good solution for employees and organizations or not?” Since the virtual office and telecommuting are tightly connected, it is of great importance to distinguish between those two terms. Telecommuting has numerous definitions in business related literature, but they all present quite similar description. For example, Noonan & Glass (2012, p. 38) state it simply as ‘work tasks regularly performed at home’ while Thomas B. Cross (2013, pp. 7-8) specifies telecommuting as ‘performing job-related work at a site away from the office, then electronically transferring the results to the office or to another location’. Telecommuting and telework are generally considered as synonyms and are used interchangeably. The virtual office is defined as ‘a fully operational and functional "work space" where an individual can complete the necessary tasks to carry out professional or personal...
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...and the improvement of their companies would be stimulated by these workers. Therefore, how could employees get through different method to achieve work-life balance, there are a couple of examples, flextime on work, reduced hours/ part-time, compressed work weeks, job sharing and telecommuting. Nowadays, work- life balance in telecommuting becomes a very popular topic. Simultaneously, it is a method that employees could utilize some basic mobility equipments such as laptop, smart-phone, power cords, and web-cam, etc. to achieve communication for accomplishing their job. There is around 79% growth for utilization of telecommuting in last a decade based on researches. Hence, we determine that the trend for future utilization of telecommuting could increase in near future. To support our conclusion, the following report is planning to demonstrate that there is a potential increase trend for work-life balance in telecommuting in near future via the analysis of its advantages and challenges. To be briefly, telecommuting is work arrangement that employees could work in differnet location. We think that there are 6 major benefits as advantages for utilization of telecommuting. Firstly, the telecommuting can increase the employment opportunity, especially for some special groups such as the disables,...
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...RESEARCH AND ANALYSIS FOR A PROPOSED TELECOMMUTING PILOT PROGRAM Prepared for S. Nolan and J. Simon, BADM 1020 Casper College Prepared by Chuck Siedenburg MCP, CNA 21 November 2011 TABLE OF CONTENTS EXECUTIVE SUMMARY………………………………...............................................2 INTRODUCTION AND BACKGROUND…………………………...............................3 DISCUSSION OF SERVICES AND ANALYSIS……………….……………….……...4 CONCLUSION………………………………...............................................................8 REFERENCES………………………………...............................................................9 BUSINESS COMMUNICATION CLASS SURVEY ……………….………………….10 INITIAL PROPOSAL…………………………………………………………………..…12 INITIAL WORKPLAN…………………………………………………………………….15 1 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Nolan – Simon Consulting is a hypothetical firm with specialists in many fields. As consultants, we provide direction and support in every aspect of business. Our expertise includes Accounting, Business Administration, Communications, Computer Science, Computer Software Support, Education & Training, IT Management & Administration and Web Design & Development. The question at hand, and the basis for this particular report, is whether Telecommuting, or working from a location other than the traditional office, is a viable and feasible option for Nolan – Simon Consulting and their clientele or not. For this firm to remain at the forefront of service, we must leverage both our assets and the available technology to provide...
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...Professor: Frank Castanon TABLE OF CONTENTS The Telecommuter 2 Introduction 2 Definition of Telecommuting 2 Overview of Orange Business Services 3 Company Background 3 Operations Background 3 Current Issues 4 Managing Employees Virtually 4 Managing Real Estate Costs 5 Investments in Technology 5 Increase Work Productivity and Family Balance 6 Proposed Solution 6 Voice over IP 7 Laptop Computers 7 Multifunction Devices 8 Video Conferencing 9 Network Security 9 Reccomendations 10 Conclusions 10 Implementation Schedule 12 The Telecommuter Today’s office environment is constantly evolving. Employers are always looking for ways to cut costs as well as at the same time increase employee moral by improving the work life balance. There are many benefits of having employees telecommute; these items include real estate cost savings, improved motivation, increased productivity and skill retention. Along the same lines, there are many advantages for the employee such as flexible hours along with reduced travel time and commuting costs. With any business situation there also disadvantages, for both the employee, and the employer. Some of these disadvantages include, how to manage employee’s virtually, and costly investments in technology. In order for the executive committee to fully understand telecommuting we must define what the concept of telecommuting is. “Telecommuting and telework are terms that are often used interchangeably to describe employees who periodically...
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...The company and policy I'm looking at is AT&T Burning fossil fuels sends toxic emissions into the atmosphere which have a negative short or long term effect on humans (especially the vulnerable like infants, elderly, people with poor immune systems, pregnant women), animals, plants and more. These externalities are living beings who have no role in decision making, production or involvement with the business procedures of AT&T. Some, humans, however, may use the services of AT&T. Problems AT&T creates through its business practices affect humans, however, whether they work for AT&T or not. AT&T has set a sustainability program in motion designed to stop or seriously diminish activities that burn fossil fuel. The company is leveraging its massive size believing that it can reduce negative environmental impacts by using network-delivered application and services. In other words, the plan is to replace activities that have a high environmental impact with low-carbon activities and thus reduce harm to countless living systems who are affected by the toxins in the air and the growing greenhouse effect that is contributing to climate change that affects everyone and everything. This is being done by new programs and systems being introduced into the company nationwide. Examples: 1. Relying more on telecommuting so rather than employees traveling to a once centralized information resource, the company building, employees, using broadband connections and collaborative...
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...Abstract A day at the office no longer means long commutes, dressing in a suit and tie or a dress, and performing work according to a 9 to 5 schedule with the boss looking over your shoulder. With the Industrial Revolution came change in how and where people work. The changes were seen subtly at first; people slowly moved to the cities to find work in factories, but then the changes started becoming more noticeable. People flocked to the cities because that is where a person could find work. The days of the small farmer who grew food for his own family were gone. Big corporations moved in and people were hired in by the hundreds, usually to perform meaningless, dreary, work. Modern society is seeing a new kind of Industrial Revolution where people are no longer stuck in semi-enclosed cubicles or monotonous, robotic-like work. Society is experiencing a different work era where people do not have to drive miles from home on stress- filled highways, only to arrive at work to put in 8 or 9 hour days performing unfulfilling tasks. A job today can mean waking up to fresh coffee, logging onto the computer, stopping in the middle of something to help their child with lunch, and returning to work right in their own homes. A job today can mean flexibility, freedom, creativity, and increased production. Introduction Working from home is not a new concept. People used to conduct their work from home because their property and home was their work. Farmers farmed their land, and the women...
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...International Journal of Management Research and and International Journal of Management Research Development (IJMRD), ISSN 2248 – 938X(Print) ISSN 2248 – 9398(Online), Volume 1, – 938X(Print) Development (IJMRD), ISSN 2248 Number 2, May-October (2011) ISSN 2248 – 9398(Online), Volume 1, Number 2 © PRJ PUBLICATION May-October (2011), pp. 25-31 © PRJ Publication, http://www.prjpublication.com/IJMRD.asp IJMRD AN OVERVIEW OF WORK- LIFE BALANCE PROGRAMMES IN UNITED STATES, UNITED KINGDOM AND INDIA A.Chitra Devi, Research scholar, Sathyabama University, Chennai Dr. S.Sheela Rani, Research Guide, Associate Professor, New College Institute of Management, Chennai ABSTRACT Work-life balance is gaining increasing importance and considered to be the most important challenges encountered in the field of Human Resource Management. With the advent of technology, increase in the complexity of work, change in the values and attitudes of the young and energetic work force are some of the factors that compel us to address the work-life balance issue and hence Work-life balance has become one of the foremost work-place issue. To meet the employees’ changing needs, to comply with Government regulations, and to fulfill the broader objective of corporate social responsibility, employers across the world provide several work-life initiatives/ policies and programmes. This article discuss about the various Work-Life Balance Initiatives/Programmes available to employees in United States, United...
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...Environmental Considerations and Recommendations Company X does not currently have any environmental initiatives. A few initiatives that would benefit the organization and be socially responsible would include going paperless, turning off the computers at night, and a telecommuting option. Each one of these can help protect the environment by reducing pollution in one manner or another. These are all small changes that could have a big impact. With a company size approaching 150 employees, we can generate quite a bit of pollution just in our day to day activities without knowing we did so. Going paperless has some specifics at Company X that make it attractive. The organization is already recycling as much paper as it can within the office, but that only goes so far. If Company X could reduce the amount of paper it uses it reduce the amount of trees being cut down and the pollution put off during the recycling process. Company X fills up 4 – 26 Gallon Recycle bins per month with paper and we shred another 4 - 30 gallon bins, I am assuming the bins being shredded are also being recycled. Much of the paper Company X is using can easily be turned into online assets that require no paper. The organization has invoices coming in and it sends invoices out. It could utilize the electronic invoicing with in the CRM to handle these invoices. This would also benefit the customers, as invoices would not get lost in the mail. The employee expense reports, which average three pages...
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