Information and Communication Technology Impact and Transformation of Workplaces - Coursework Example

ICT Impact and Transformation of Workplaces – A Discussion “The concept of community applies both online and offline. Online, community is a metaphor. Offline, the spirit of community is required to implement the changes that the Internet makes possible—to give customers more choices, citizens more voice, educators more capacity to improve children’s learning, and businesses greater market reach and internal efficiency.” Rosabeth Moss Kanter. E-volve!: Succeeding in the Digital Culture of Tomorrow. (Boston: Harvard Business School Press, 2001) p.197. Introduction The last three decades have seen unprecedented developments in the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) throughout the world. Australia too, has also been swept by the ICT wave and according to the Internet World Stats - World Internet Usage Statistics report, of the estimated population (2009), the number of internet users has gone up from 7,620,480 in the 2000 to 20,838,019 in the year 2009 with a penetration of 60.1 percent of the population. Growth percentage has been a laudable 173.4 % (http://www.internetworldstats.com/stats.htm). So how has ICT affected and transformed the workplace, particularly the impact ICT has had on the role of the Administrative Manager or a Knowledge worker? Has it helped to make their tasks easier, or has it indirectly made it more tedious? Has it helped to better human relations and interpersonal skills or has it worsened human relations by making the users more mechanical? These are some of the issues that shall be discussed in this essay which is based on an interview with a Middle-level Administrator in an Ad Agency in Melbourne, Australia. The name of the workplace and the interviewed person has been changed in order to preserve privacy. The essay shall include relevant parts of the interview and analyze the transformation brought about with the help of ICT in interviewee’s workplace. It shall conclude with the observation that ICT has indeed brought about a positive change in the work environment albeit with some shortcomings in terms of adverse physical and to a lesser extent emotional health of users. ICT and Increased Numbers of Ad Media Ad agencies have often been dubbed as the ‘dream merchants’. The industry, like any other has its own norms and nuances; however, this industry can be associated with the Motivation Theory formulated by Taylor. His first key assumption regarding human behaviour at the workplace that, human beings are “rational economic animals” concerned with getting the greatest “economic gain” (tutor2u.net) in any dealing is the paradigm underlying the ad industry. According to Ad Agency Administrator Isaac Woods, the ‘dream merchants’ should be interpreted as “harbingers of positive human vision” (2009, p.1) rather than having any negative connotations. Woods added saying that however, the advent of ICT and introduction of new graphic tools has indeed given a dream-like tinge to the quality of ads produced these days. Automation and ICT has totally transformed the way advertisement agencies function and work today as compared to what they were some twenty-five years or even seventeen years back. While previously the agency mainly dealt with press ads, hoardings and banners, and television spot advertisements, the introduction of communication innovations like the computer, internet, mobile phones and social networking sites (SNS) have helped revolutionize the ad industry, offering them more media platforms to advertise their client’s products, and entirely new possibilities in advertising. Mr. Woods illustrated this observation with a very relevant example. While food products like cheese and oats were advertised only as press ads and probably as TV spot ads some years back, now it is possible to advertise them in the internet, with the help of animated cartoon characters and in much more attractive and cost effective ways. Websites advertise products and educate them at the same time, across the borders, and most importantly with a vast reduction of costs and increase in profits. E-commerce facilitates online sales of the products and the electronic customer-care process ensures follow-up with the customer’s needs. The ‘Reach’ of the ads has greatly improved by the innovations in ICT and ‘brand positioning’ has also been facilitated with the availability of more media platforms like, Press, TV, Mobile Messages (sms), Online advertisements, Web portals and so on. ICT and Knowledge-Workers The transformation of the workplace is possible most visible in the way ICT has required specific skills for certain jobs. The result is that such skills are constantly transferred and obtained by people at the workplace, giving them the name “knowledge workers,” as they possess “high degrees of expertise, education or experience, and the primary purpose of their jobs involves the creation, distribution or application of knowledge” (Tom Davenport cited in McKellar 2005:1). With regard to the ad industry, the greatest innovation has been the expedition of the creative work, the backbone of advertisements. Previously artists used to hand draw each and every artwork and hand prepare the copy-text for the press-ad that was to appear; and this had to be redone again and again laboriously to suit to different specifications of magazine ad, newspaper ads, in different sizes and according to their colour schemes. Today, story boards come from standardized computer graphic tools, and jingles can be ‘web casted’ to ‘talk’ to the customers in different languages, all in digital format, which allows for easy corrections and modifications at a later date, as and when necessary. “Now, with the introduction of computerization, and graphic tools like the Adobe Illustrator, Photoshop to name a few, and the innumerable animation packages, bringing the products to life has been made not only easier, but also very interesting” (Woods, 2009: 1). This observation of Mr. Woods seems to be echoing the words of Regan and O’Connor (2002) in the text that states, “Applications will become increasingly sophisticated with multi-media, virtual reality, and online environments, such as e-books and e-learning” (p. 21). As regards the other important side of advertising – the media management, there too a lot of innovation has been brought about by ICT. Like for example, Online Television Ratings, and feedback through short messaging services (sms) and mobile have completely taken the concept of advertisements itself by storm. Advertisements have come a long way from being “one-way communication. Since the consumers have so many media to express their approval or disapproval, their immediate feedback possibilities have made the communication two-way” (Woods, 2009: 2). Thus, the popularity of a particular TV programme can be gauged almost immediately, thereby helping the media planners and managers to advice their clients aptly. On the accounting side too, the production costs, rates of various TV spots, newspaper space, Web-hosting costs etc are available in the form of a huge real-time database which is constantly updated at the head-office and simultaneously reaches all the branch offices too. Furthermore, outstanding bills, payments made are all electronically stored and retrieved at the appropriate time and departments, and accessible at the head office which coordinates the whole set-up of multiple branches. Role of the Administrator in the ICT Wired Environment This is where the office administrator comes into play, according to Mr. Woods. As mid-level administrator, his duties include co-ordination between the supervisors of various departments and ensure that the jobs of the respective departments are completed within the specific time frame. In an ad agency where intellectuals and experts from various fields meet for the brainstorming sessions, ensuring smoothness and keeping the agenda of the meeting is one of the foremost tasks of the office administrator. Frequently in the workplace where is a lot of automation and technological innovations find place, people tend to believe that the machines will do the work automatically without human involvement which is not possible – as McKellar correctly points out, it is “often overlooked through all that allure and investment of time and dollars are the people who will be using the systems--the knowledge workers” (2005:1). It is the administrator’s job in this agency to keep the communications between the knowledge workers flowing and strong. Ensure that the loop-holes are plugged and work moves form one department to the other ceaselessly in order to keep the business running profitably. Mr. Woods reports a sea change in his working schedule. While prior to ICT happening, he used to run round from desk to desk asking his department heads to furnish reports for intra-departmental communication, list of jobs completed, jobs pending, customer relations report, service department and client coordination reports and so on. Now, ICT and the networked office environment allow him to access all these reports from his seat. Memos to various department heads, presentations, communication with employees, bulletin board notices, preparation of contracts, agreements and MOUs, production reports, customer meeting reports are all processed through the systems (computers), and mailed through the intra and internet. Instant communications with the client and with fellow employees during emergencies is made possible even during travel and outstation trips by means of mobile and instant short messaging services. Thus, means of communication has improved leaps and bounds. Sometimes though, on does feel the need of actual face-to-face human contact – “the human interaction,” feels Mr. Woods; “The habit of man-machine-man somehow takes away the personal touch that is so essential to build rapport and human bonds in an otherwise deadline-bound business environment” (2009: 2). The socio-technical theory discusses this exactly; the two, sometimes opposite and conflicting values that form the undercurrent of the interactions in workplaces. “The first is a belief in the importance of humanistic principles… to enhance the quality of working life and the job satisfaction of the employee... enhance productivity and yield added value to the organization” (Land 2000, cited by Akbari and Land, 2005:1). Conclusion ICT has revolutionized the way people communicate with each other and has helped shrink distance and time. The deluge of new gadgets and technologies in the society and workplace has made it imperative for employees at all levels to acquire new skills that use machines and technological inventions and gain expertise in them. In the process of working together and communicating with each other in the work places they transfer knowledge and share skill-sets, thus making them ‘knowledge-workers’. Just as the workplace has evolved with the advent of the modern ICT innovations, the role of the Administrative Manager has also changed. Expedition of functions has become the essence of the working and means of communications have increased in manifold ways. However, as can be understood from the above interview, at least a section of administrative managers feel that human relations are slowly losing their edge with the rampant modernization and automation of workplaces. This interview has shed light on the positives and the negatives of ICT at workplaces and has provided food for thought for further investigation in the subject of improving human relations in the automated workplace. References: Kanter, Rosabeth Moss (2001). E-volve!: Succeeding in the Digital Culture of Tomorrow. (Boston: Harvard Business School Press, 2001) p.197. Land, F.F., (2000), Evaluation in a Socio-Technical Context, in Basskerville, R., Stage, J., and DeGross, J.I., Organizational and Social Perspectives on Information Technology, pp.115- 126, Boston, Kluwer Academic Publishers. Internet World Stats World Internet Usage Statistics (2009). Online article retrieved on August 19, 2009. http://www.internetworldstats.com/stats.htm McKellar, Hugh (2005). “The knowledge (worker) economy” in The KM World Online article retrieved on August 19, 2009. http://www.kmworld.com/Articles/Column/From-The-Editor/The-knowledge-(worker)-economy-14264.aspx Tutor2u.net (undated). “Motivation in theory – Taylor – Scientific Management” online article retrieved on August 19, 2009. http://tutor2u.net/business/people/motivation_theory_taylor.asp Read More