Workplace Now and in Future - Coursework Example

Workplace Now and in Future Name: Tutor: Course: Date: Introduction The aim of this essay is to explore the environment, daily activities, technologies that affect present and future workplace of a tours and travel manager. An interview with the branch manager of one other famous tours and travel companies in Australia was conducted and the results shown below. Later the future work environment of the employee was considered and discussed based on changes in technology, impacts of this technology, and energy resources in workplace, society, longevity, demography and globalization. Part 1: Informational interview The following discussion was derived from a face-to-face informational interview on technological changes in workplace environment administered by the researcher on the branch manager of a leading tours and travel company in Australia. On the duration the manager has been working in the tours and travel industry, the response was that she has worked for eight years as a tours operator in her former company and five years in may present organization. That is to mean she has thirteen years experience in the tours and travel industry. When asked of her role, she said that as branch manager her duties are supervisory, leadership and people management. She is also involved in planning, innovation and integration of technology in tours and travel. The company is involved in daily activities especially in tours and travel services to global visitors and tourists from all walks of life. They are involved in making travel arrangements, planning trip itineraries and offering advice on destinations. They also do entertainment activities, lodging and transportation. Regarding changes in the workplace in terms of environment and technology, she said that tours and travel industry, and especially their organization have undergone rapid changes. First, there has been fundamental change in tourist perceptions, increased desire to explore natural environments and increased environmental awareness. Web-based technology has revolutionalised booking, sales and content management (Maurer, 2003). The heavy and tiresome manual records of visitor details have been replaced with back office product database. She notes that suppliers have also been connected to extranets and finance department now have an operational travel-specific financial system. Knowledge management and information systems are key areas that have radically developed (Benckendorff et al. 2014). Workplace environment changes have experienced challenges and opportunities. She noted that more than 15 years ago, tours and travel were bureaucratic, difficult and full of red tape. The situation was worsened by dictatorial managers, low remuneration and poor protection of tour guides and operators. She notes that nowadays, extensive research has provided avenues to understand ways of improving employee and customer satisfaction. Facilities such as visitor purpose vehicles, tour guides classes, and online entertainment equipment has improved operations in the organization. Moreover, the company financial performance is improving which has given confidence to employees, suppliers and customers to work with the company. She commented the current management as being oriented in servant leadership, coaching and training of employees. Moreover, well performing employees are given bonuses and other rewards at the beginning of the year. However, the workplace has not integrated diversity and cultural change. This is an issue that the company will need to change. On the changes in technology at their workplace, the manager admitted that technological changes have dramatically changed the ways of doings things in the company. Some of the technologies are social media, internet, mobile telephones, tablets, iPads and laptops (Zito, 2012). She commented that people around the world have an opportunity to follow us on twitter, share on Facebook and contribute in the LinkedIn. Though people feel that technology may eliminate the tour guide altogether, she believes that they are the ones using them to their advantage. Compared to 10 or 15 years ago, few or no one had a phone, tablet and laptop that enable one to send, make calls or receive and send email documents. Currently, people are able to create presentations, store photos, track flights, check the weather, access online data and fill out paperwork (Zito, 2012). On opportunities created by advancement in technologies in the industry, she wondered how guides could work without cellular phones in the past. She added that nowadays, there are apps such as Triposo, Viator and Collette have smoothened logistical wrinkles in the daily operations of a tour company and has eliminated loads of paperwork. She can save my detailed tour notes on Dropbox, Google Docs and even access them on my iPad or iPhone. She also keeps backup of maps and pictures of trickier parts of hiking tours. She has audio downloaded to provide additional sense of history for school children who visit our company. In addition, she can use tablets to customize handouts like photo slide shows, welcome letters and access the Web for guests’ reservations in local restaurants and check their flight schedules. Finally, on the question on the developing patterns and trends in the industry, she said that artificial intelligent agents are gaining increased use in computers as personal holiday tour guides. There is also a greater flexibility of booking using call centres, teletext and internet (Zhou, 2004). More staff will be made redundant as people gain preference for online travel agents. Regional airports are also expanding and growing (Zito, 2012). In addition, she said that more independent travelers are increasing each day especially for business trips and mountain biking. Part 2: Workplace of Tours and Travel Company in 2025 The workplace has made significant changes since 2015 when technology was in a rapid development phase. Now, the manager of the tours and Travel Company does not have to be at the workplace all day. Her roles have been reduced to leadership and less of supervisory since all her employees understand their work and job description. Social media has now been accepted as the official tools of office communication and sharing (Zito, 2012). The medium has been integrated into a micro-chip which can be accessed and worn on the finger. From this position, the manager receives communications from visitors. At the moment, she receives communication on the micro-chip worn on her finger. She spends less time and money accessing the workplace and getting in-touch with every employee. If she requires seeing events at any point, she gets live videos on her tablet on all the operations. Here, she chooses what to follow at a given time. She even receives customer comments and ratings on individual employee and recorded in the chip. The firm has closed some of its office branches since online booking agents have now taken over the industry landscape (Kasavana & Brooks, 2001). Guests have reminders and updates on their talking phones on real time weather and location. The micro-chip also senses tsunamis, earthquakes and extreme cases of weather which advises the tourist and company employees on what plans to undertake. The physical workplace has also changed with prevalence to mobile and virtual offices. Literally, there is no exchange of physical money as everything is being conducted online (Porter, 2001). A guest selects a package on micro-chip and it is immediately accepted and confirmed by the company. If unavailable in the time the visitor wants, an immediate response pops up suggesting a number of other holiday options. The guests agree with the tour operators on where they want picked and taken. In addition, the head phone technology will have an automated translator where a human tour guide tells stories and it is immediately translated to the language of the visitor while sitting on the bus. The use of hot air balloons has also increased with increasing use by families and people from lower economic disposition (Clayton & Criscuolo, 2002). Nations have also agreed to remove barriers to movement and trade and families, individuals and businesspeople can move without need for visas or travel advisories (Kasavana & Brooks, 2001). People in this time are more tolerant and friendly compared to 2015. There is also increased use of solar power which has lowered reliance on hydropower. Most people in this age have college education or university degree and many have stable incomes and longer lifespan (Zipf, 2002). They also understand more than two international languages and the government has subsidized air travel for families involved in domestic tourism. The tour and travel can also access to recipes and translation from other cultures. However, the rural backyard of Australian outback has not changed and people still hold the same opinions, culture and values as they were in 2015. The hotels have done away with the TV and radio (Maurer, 2003). Video streaming of live news, stories and entertainment can be accessed through tablets via Bluetooth and not necessary that one is connected to the internet. Visitors can learn and communicate with people abroad if they choose them as friends (Sharma et al. 200). They can also exchange ideas on life experiences translated into their own languages by the tablets. In the nutshell, customers are getting more excited that before and many visitors from around the world can access the operations, employees, and management (Zhou, 2004). Part 3: Reflection I have learned from the entire exercise that technology has influenced to a greater extent operations and activities of tours and travel companies. I now understand that the world is quickly changing and aspects of inclusive and integrated work environments are gaining vogue. I feel that technological changes have increased capabilities and capacities of organizations to astonish customers, delight its employees and grow the financial books. I have also learned that organizations that quickly embrace change become the first to take advantage of benefits that will create competitive advantage and increase their market share. As organizations change, employees also need to change by taking up training and educational opportunities that are compatible to the changes in technology (Dogac et al. 2004). I think it is important that society accepts changes in culture and values that meets the needs of all the people irrespective of socio-economic and political affiliations. I have learned that I need to be updated not only on fashion, entertainment and sporting activities but also how to use technological gadgets that have been lately developed. I now understand that as you gain experience in certain profession, it is advisable to keep abreast with changes in the market in order to remain relevant. I think that when companies and organizations become hesitant in embracing managerial and technological changes, they will be taken over by events and will soon find themselves closing their business. I believe with increasing competition, the future workplace is getting tougher and tougher as rival companies invest in superior technology and become pioneers. Social media has changed the global workplace and many people are now using the platforms to share and communicate ideas (Benckendorff, 2014). Conclusion The essay has drawn a lot of insights from the interview with the manager of tours and travel. I think the future work environment will be more eco-friendly and employee friendly coupled with modern technological advancements can increase the ability of employees to deliver and improve competence and skills. I now agree that it is essential for a company culture and employee competencies to change with times so as to keep abreast with technological changes. I believe that the environment of change can be incremental to allow for gradual changes in the work environment that are sustainable. To my career, I think it remains a challenge to remain behind a superior and positive technological change. I take this as an opportunity to always embrace technology that will improve my personal, career and organizational goals. References list Benckendorff, PJ Sheldon, PJ & Fesenmaier, DR 2014, Tourism Information Technology (Second Edition). Wallingford, UK: CABI. Clayton, T & Criscuolo, C 2002, Electronic commerce and business change, National Statistics, viewed 16 April 2005. Dogac, A Kabak, Y Laleci, G Sinir, S Yildiz, A Kirbas, S & Gurcan, Y 2004, Semantically enriched web services for the travel industry, SIGMOD Rec., vol. 33, no. 3, pp. 21-7. Kasavana, ML & Brooks, RM 2001, Managing Front Office Operations, Educational Institute of the American Hotel & Lodging Association, Michigan Maurer, E 2003, Internet for the Retail Travel Industry. Clifton Park, NY: Thomson/Delmar Learning. Porter, ME 2001, Strategy and the Internet, Harvard Business School Publishing Corp, Mass, USA. Sharma, P Carson, D & DeLacy, T 2000, National online tourism policy initiatives for Australia, Journal of Travel Research, vol. 39, no. 2, pp. 157-62. Zhou, Z 2004, E-commerce and Information Technology in Hospitality and Tourism. Clifton Park, NY: Delmar Learning. Zipf, A 2002, Adaptive context-aware mobility support for tourists, IEEE Intelligent Systems, vol. 17, no. 6, pp. 57-9. Zito, M 2012, The next big travel technology opportunity: a mobile-only booking giant for tours and activities, Nov 6.2012. http://www.tnooz.com/article/the-next-big-travel-technology- opportunity-a-mobile-only-booking-giant-for-tours-and-activities/ Read More