Telework Issues - Term Paper Example

Telework Introduction Telework or telecommuting is an innovative tendency of the modern business world. Numerous firms and companies are engaged with this tendency and in such a way they provide many advantages for employers and employees. Basing on the evidence of employees, who are engaged in telecommuting, this way of work is beneficial for them for sure. Moreover, the employers and the employees want to search for beneficial options of telecommuting in the spheres of communication. Unfortunately, modern businesses very often are afraid of this innovation and discard its popularity. Workforce of these companies is often prevented from an opportunity of effective work. Nevertheless, it should be noted that telecommuting cannot be implemented to any kind of job and there are many technological challenges in this field. In order to implement effective telecommuting, the employers and employees should take into account employee training, formal policies of the technology implementation. Telework on the start The start of telework can be found in California in 70s. The main goal of telework at that time was to save environment by reduction of employee’s and employers’ travelling to the places of their job (Vega, 2003). Telework provides the employers and employees with an opportunity to perform their job from different places: from their homes, employer-owned satellite offices of from anywhere else. Nowadays more than 23% of the North American and European enterprises, where the number of employees is more than 1,000, there is an option for remote telework (Jackson and Wielen, 1998). Employees take into account the chances not to rent big offices and employees find it more convenient to work at home and to regulate their work schedule themselves. Otherwise, employees are looking for other opportunities and work outside from their offices and are engaged in telecommuting programs of different firms. On the other hand, there are largest rates of telework in America in comparison with other European countries. French employees are not engaged in telework to the greatest extent. They prefer conservative options of work. Only 9% of their employees telecommute, while in the UK this number is 18% and 15% of employees in Germany (Avery and Zabel, 2001). Moreover, it should be noted, that the option of telecommuting is relevant both to large and small firms and businesses. In accordance with the survey, conducted in 2009: “At companies with between 1,000 and 4,999 employees surveyed last year, an average of 16% of employees telecommute one or more days per week, compared with an average of 14% of employees at firms with between 5,000 and 19,999 employees, and an average of 18% of those working for organizations with 20,000 or more employees” (Brownlee 2009, p. 2). Moreover, there is a greater opportunity for employees, who often telecommute, to travel to different countries regularly. The highest percentage is found in the North America. Benefits for companies There are numerous advantages for the companies, which implement telecommuting. In spite of the fact that there are essential benefits, many businesses are afraid of cost of supporting telecommuting, which is too high. There is a need to hire IT specialists and create IT groups in order to support telework. More innovative and risk-taking businesses realize advantages of telework (Vega, 2003). They are able to send millions of dollar a year on real estate, because they provide their employees with an opportunity to work at home. Moreover, the levels of employee productivity are also essential. Managers underline that it is more convenient for them not to interrupt offline work and thus it is the right way to work delivery, especially in cases of urgency. First of all, there is a need for organizations to establish written telecommuting policy. It should be reviewed and corrected by IT specialists, financial department and human resource department. The majority of the companies and organizations correlate the basic principles of teleworking with the corporate travel and expense (T&E) policy (Vega, 2003). This policy underlines a discretionary choice made by employees and an opportunity for the managers to implement their policies of telework. For example, in case an employee is absent from the organization and wants to work at home, he should have a written approval of his manager. In this case, an option for the organization’s expenses is long-term business calls of the managers. Moreover, telework should be positioned as a cultural innovation of the company’s management. There is an option for the company to pay or not to pay for long-term calls of the employees. In case telecommuting is a part of an independent employment program, then it is positioned as conditions for a flexible-work employment strategy in order to hire talented specialists and thus making a valuable contribution to the company. The formalization of telework approach should be properly considered by the company. It can be interpreted to the employees as an essential contribution to employee morale during the hard economical period. Work-life balance of employees should be also considered by the organization, because telework facilitates employees work for the organization for sure. For example, and employee would have a chance to stay at home twice a week and will be able to devote his time to his family and his work at the same time. In order to evaluate benefits and costs of telework, there is a need to focus on “overall and situation-specific costs, benefits, risks and flexibility connected with telecommuting” (Brownlee, 2009). There should be desk support hours, as well as fixed break rules. Eligibility of employees for telecommuting, employees’ comfort of telecommuting, responsibilies of telecommuters and many other aspects should be taken into account by the companies (Ellison, 2004). It is on behalf of employees to realize their responsibilities in the process of telecommuting. For example, they should be focused on avoiding lengthy commutes; have more time for reports completion, have specific needs, if they are parents etc. Employers should take care much about their telecommuting employees and the options of reporting to the managers in the process of telecommuting. They are responsible for a constant remote IT help desk support; otherwise telecommuting does not make sense. Mobile workers should have a constant access to the company’s information from different places by means of computers, Internet, Wi-Fi and any other means of telecommunication. In order to make an option of telecommuting more formal, employees should have an option to sign written statements of their agreement with telecommuting policies of their organization. IT support groups and monitor groups should perform their roles of the organization’s policies regulation. Basically, in accordance with Shanks (2008) telecommuting should be directed on compliance within the organization. Thus telecommutting: “also will help your company achieve the business goals that the policy is intended to address, including improving employee morale and loyalty, increasing overall productivity and possibly new revenue generation, and enhancing accessibility for customers” (Brownlee 2009, p. 4). In accordance with the modern researches and studies, managers, employees and environment gain huge benefits from telework. Micro-view of benefits of telework underlines the necessity to provide employees with laptops or computers and Internet connections. Moreover, in accordance with managers, there is an essential increase of productivity or the levels of productivity remain the same. From the macro-view, there are global environmental advantages from telework. For example, in the NFS company, a teleworker return 62 hours of their lives back and saves $1,201 a year (Brownlee, 2009). Moreover, there are even deeper benefits on the environmental level. More than 1 million pounds of emissions and are saved and commuting costs are reduced for $700,000 (Brownlee, 2009). These figures are impressive and beneficial not only for the companies, but also for the economies of the country and, what is more important, for the environment. Benefits for employees The main advantages for employees from telework are the following ones: there is a better work/life balance, a decrease of carbon footprints and commuting time and costs (Brownlee, 2009). Moreover, highly-skilled employees have a perfect opportunity to provide their services to different companies by means of telework.   Moreover, teleworkers gain the following benefits: they are highly involved with their families. This fact is advantageous not only for individual teleworkers, but also for the community in general. There is a better control over the working environment and they experience less hazards for their health, such as stress, time spend on commuting and as a result, employees have access to a better control of their work-life balance and are open for employee morale (Kaczmarczyk, 2008). In accordance with AT&T National Survey of Teleworker Attitudes and Work Styles more than 60% of American teleworkers experience a positive career development, while they are engaged as teleworkers. The increase of performance of teleworkers enabled them to work at home and get occupied in different companies. They have their sustained performance gains and indicate positive results of telework. There are also advantageous spheres for telework, such as sales, managing, business professionals, teachers and managers). Employer’s Benefits The most advantageous aspect of telework for employers is the improvement of the company’s productivity. Moreover, such costs savings as real estate costs, facilities costs etc appear in the result of the absence of the necessity to provide their employees with office space to work. Moreover, in such a way the companies have a chance to hire prospective and highly-skilled employees and to decrease overhead expenses. A decrease of commute time exerts influence on the levels of productivity of employees for sure. Morale of employees increases the levels of productivity greatly as well. Loyal employers lead to satisfied employees and there is no “job hopping” in that case. Societal Benefits There is a need to mention that telework is a beneficial not only for the business world, but also for the environment. As a result, there are many ways to conserve energy by means of carbon dioxide emissions reduction and traffic reduction (Johnson, 1994). There was an initiative created by the Massachusetts Division of Energy Resources and the Massachusetts Highway Department to discuss the benefits of telework for the environment and the society (Jacckson, 1999). The report of the research states the following findings: “telecommuting reduces vehicle miles traveled and, thus, provides benefits in terms of reduced energy consumption, vehicle emissions, and highway congestion” (Brownlee 2009, p. 4). In the aerospace field there is an intention to implement telework as well. Thus, Boeing Commercial Airplane Group, (BCAG) introduced a Virtual Workplace Pilot Program. Positive attitudes of employees to introduction of telework were found out. Benefits outweigh costs in telework for sure. That is why, it should be noted that workgroup morale, an opportunity to hire high-skilled employees and providing the companies with a new group of talented workers or skilled managerial support, represent telework as a perfect opportunity for the modern businesses. Disadvantages of Telecommuting There is no doubt that every coin has two sides and telework is not an ideal type of business. This is not the only option to facilitate the functioning of modern companies and organizations. Therefore, there are a lot of challenges and barriers in this business innovative option. The main drawback for employers is the absence of visual control over the employees. The issue of security is very important for the companies, but they cannot be sure that their employees take care of information properly and not share it with the third parties. Teleworkers may suffer from their isolation from working environment in the office. There is an option of overwork, as well as inability to regulate time work at home. Very often, family members distract teleworkers from their work, because they do not realize that these people are working, just they are working at home and not in the office. A feeling of isolation and the absence of moral support is relevant to teleworkers as well (Vega, 2003). They are working at home, they are working alone and there is no one around to give a piece of advice. There is another challenging social aspect, which implies the absence of required laws regulating job of telework. Employment laws or labor laws very often neglect teleworkers wages and overtime. For example, there is an option for employers to facilitate legal regulations of teleworkers’ job. They should guarantee that their employees work during their scheduled hours and make notes of the process of their work for sure. These issues are regulated in terms of Fair Labor Standards Act (Vega, 2003). Moreover, there is a chance that people with disabilities are engaged in telecommuting. In this case all possible conflicts should be regulated in terms of the Americans with Disabilities Act. All teleworkers’ salaries should be regulated with fair workers compensation, which is described in Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. People of different ages may work as teleworkers and there is a need to take into account other two acts, such as the National Labor Relations Act and Age Discrimination in Employment Act (Wendell and Verive, 2006). Moreover, the main disadvantages of telecommuting may concern a lack of a daily contact among employees and isolation may not be beneficial for further promotion of an employee. There is the absence of integrative personal changes or a lack of a certain dynamics of work. Sometimes the levels of productivity may be ensured in the process of collaboration among colleagues, but there is a lack of this option for teleworkers. Technological challenges are direct factors, preventing employees from an efficient work. For example, very often Internet connection fails or there is a slow access time, which lead to the loss of data and time. In accordance with Infonetics Research project, “downtime” of remote users is nearly $4 million of decreased levels of productivity this year (Wendell, 2007). This challenge occurs both at home and in the office. Not only managers, but also family members should support teleworkers in the process of their work. Employers of the companies may feel a split among their employees because there is a feeling of alienation among those, who are working at home and those, who are working in the office. A lack of visual control over teleworkers is one of the main preventive factors for employers in order to evaluate whether an employee spends his time effectively or not. Moreover, the economies of the companies gain benefits from telework in case the level of “downtime” is decreased among teleworkers. In spite of the findings that environment gains benefits and there is a smaller number of cars and different means of transportation commuting, teleworkers have more free time and during this time they may travel or go by car wherever they want. There is also reduction of taxes paid by the companies in case they are free from the option of renting and that will take money from national economy for sure. Conclusion As far as we can see, there are more positive issues about telework than negative ones. Telework is a perfect option for the modern business world to satisfy the needs of employees, employers and the government. The most remarkable benefits are: an increased level of job satisfaction, growing levels of productivity, reduced costs and environmentally-friendly policies of telecommuting. A balanced work relations among employers, employees and support groups lead to high levels of satisfaction from telework. The benefits of telecommuting outweigh the costs and we can talk about the increase of efficient work, growing levels of productivity and reductions in real estate costs, numerous environmental benefits, greater work flexibility and many others. Works cited Avery, Christine, and Diane Zabel. The Flexible Workplace: A Sourcebook of Information and Research. Westport, CT: Quorum Books, 2001. Questia. Web. 22 Dec. 2011. Ellison, Nicole B. Telework and Social Change: How Technology Is Reshaping the Boundaries between Home and Work. Westport, CT: Praeger, 2004. Questia. Web. 22 Dec. 2011. Jackson, Paul J., and Jos M.Van Der Wielen. Teleworking: International Perspectives: From Telecommuting to the Virtual Organisation. London: Routledge, 1998.Questia. Web. 22 Dec. 2011. Jackson, Paul. Virtual Working: Social and Organisational Dynamics. London: Routledge, 1999. Questia. Web. 22 Dec. 2011. Joice, Wendell. "Implementing Telework: The Technology Issue Two Studies Examine Technology Challenges That May Pose Barriers to Mainstreaming Federal Telework and Tell Public Managers How to Overcome Them." The Public Manager 36.2 (2007): 64+. Questia. Web. 22 Dec. 2011. Joice, Wendell, and Jennifer Verive. "Telework and Federal Employee Dependent Care: A Recent Government Study Takes a Comprehensive Look at the Use of Federal Employee Telework to Help Manage Care-Giving Duties." The Public Manager 35.3 (2006): 44+. Questia. Web. 22 Dec. 2011. Kaczmarczyk, Stanley. "Telework: Breaking New Ground Successful Telework Programs Feature Active Top-Level Leadership, Clear Policy and Guidelines, Solid Program Support, and Integration in Overall Agency Planning." The Public Manager 37.1 (2008): 63+. Questia. Web. 22 Dec. 2011. Shanks, James R. "Federal Telework: A Model for the Private Sector Despite a Slow Start, Federal Agencies Increasingly Embrace the Business and Work-Life Benefits of Toiling outside the Office." The Public Manager 36.2 (2007): 59+.Questia. Web. 22 Dec. 2011. Thomas, Brownlee Ph.D. It’s Time To Review — And Renew — Your Telecommuting Policy. 2009. Web. 22 Dec. 2011. Available at: http://www.nawbo.org/imageuploads/ForresterTelecommutingPolicyReport.pdf Vega, Gina. Managing Teleworkers and Telecommuting Strategies. Westport, CT: Praeger, 2003. Questia. Web. 22 Dec. 2011. Read More