“There has been a revolution in computing and communications in the past few decades and it will continue at a rapid pace. These advances present many significant opportunities but also pose major challenges.” says Konsbruck Robert Lee.
There was a time when typical office communications consisted of a desk phone and maybe an intercom. Although office workers of the time before our present information technology age had their desk phone, the intercom was often used to call workers to the manager's office, to relay a quick message or to relay a few instructions. Businesses could still communicate with their offices overseas and conference calling was something where you needed operators help to make the connection.
Interoffice communication decades ago consisted of memos being circulated and posted in a common place for all to see. When memos were of a confidential nature, they were placed in an envelope that required the recipients initials when they received it. Couriers were widely used to carry important and confidential documents across town for signatures and the post office enjoyed much business because it was the place to send, pickup or have delivered, your certified letters and correspondence. Letters, manuscripts and memos were produced on a typewriter and many offices and news rooms had typist clamouring away at their typewriter keys to produce volumes of work.
To say much has changed since the days before our present Information Technology age, would be an understatement. When email appeared on the scene, interoffice and overseas communications took a dramatic change. More could be communicated in much less time and replies took minutes, not days. Electronic messages directly competed with telegraph companies, people used telegram services less and less especially when more computers appeared in homes. When offices could afford computers costing thousands of dollars, word processing replaced typewriters and typist became a thing of the past. On the scene now, are data entry and order enter specialist.
Information Technology has and is changing the way companies communicate and conduct business. Business is more streamlined and efficient. Technology companies are finding ways to make systems and processes more efficient. People who own a personal computer can access their office computers from home and businesses can hold online conferences to communicate with their offices overseas, without ever leaving their local office. The ability to send instant messages to the desktop of workers saves time and managers can get instant replies to help in the decision-making process. The workplace is not only global, it is easily accessible to employers and employees alike. The location of your office, no longer matters, it's local now because of technology implementations and the way we use this technology to communicate.
As technology firms find newer and improved methods to communicate, the present methods being used saves companies and people hundreds and thousands of dollars and these saving would be definitely missed if the use of existing technology was interrupted.
As you know, computers and communication technologies allow individuals to communicate with one another in ways complementary to traditional face-to-face, telephonic, and written modes. They enable collaborative work involving distributed communities of actors who seldom, if ever, meet physically. These technologies utilize communication infrastructures that are both global and always up, thus enabling 24-hour activity and asynchronous as well as synchronous interactions among individuals, groups, and organizations. Social interaction in organizations will be affected by use of computers and communication technologies. Peer-to-peer relations across department lines will be enhanced through sharing of information and coordination of activities. Interaction between superiors and subordinates will become more tense because of social control issues raised by the use of computerized monitoring systems, but on the other hand, the use of e-mail will lower the barriers to communications across different status levels, resulting in more uninhibited communications between supervisor and subordinates.
The importance of distance will be reduced by computers and communication technology also favours telecommuting. As workers find that they can do most of their work at home rather than in a centralized workplace, the demand for homes in climatically and physically attractive regions would increase. The consequences of such a shift in employment from the suburbs to more remote areas would be profound. Property values would rise in the favoured destinations and fall in the suburbs. Rural, historical, or charming aspects of life and the environment in the newly attractive areas would be threatened. Since most telecommuters would be among the better educated and higher paid, the demand in these areas for high-income and high-status services like gourmet restaurants and clothing boutiques would increase. Also would there be an expansion of services of all types, creating and expanding job opportunities for the local population.
By reducing the fixed cost of employment, widespread telecommuting should make it easier for individuals to work on flexible schedules, to work part time, to share jobs, or to hold two or more jobs simultaneously. Since changing employers would not necessarily require changing one's place of residence, telecommuting should increase job mobility and speed career advancement. This increased flexibility might also reduce job stress and increase job satisfaction. Since job stress is a major factor governing health there may be additional benefits in the form of reduced health costs and mortality rates.
A question that is more difficult to be answered is about the impacts that computers and communications might have on employment. The ability of computers and communications to perform routine tasks such as bookkeeping more rapidly than humans leads to concern that people will be replaced by computers and communications. The response to this argument is that even if computers and communications lead to the elimination of some workers, other jobs will be created, particularly for computer professionals, and that growth in output will increase overall employment. It is more likely that computers and communications will lead to changes in the types of workers needed for different occupations rather than to changes in total employment.
A number of industries are affected by electronic commerce. The distribution sector is directly affected, as e-commerce is a way of supplying and delivering goods and services. Other industries, indirectly affected, are those related to information and communication technology (the infrastructure that enables e-commerce), content-related industries (entertainment, software), transactions-related industries (financial sector, advertising, travel, transport). Ecommerce might also create new markets or extend market reach beyond traditional borders. Enlarging the market will have a positive effect on jobs. Another important issue relates to interlinkages among activities affected by e-commerce. Expenditure for e-commerce-related intermediate goods and services will create jobs indirectly, on the basis of the volume of electronic transactions and their effect on prices, costs and productivity. The convergence of media, telecommunication and computing technologies is creating a new integrated supply chain for the production and delivery of multimedia and information content. Most of the employment related to e-commerce envolves around the content industries and communication infrastructure such as the Internet.
Jobs are both created and destroyed by technology, trade, and organizational change. These processes also underlie changes in the skill composition of employment. Beyond the net employment gains or losses brought about by these factors, it is apparent that workers with different skill levels will be affected differently. E-commerce is certainly driving the demand for IT professionals but it also requires IT expertise to be coupled with strong business application skills, thereby generating demand for a flexible, multi-skilled work force. There is a growing need for increased integration of Internet front-end applications with enterprise operations, applications and back-end databases. Many of the IT skill requirements needed for Internet support can be met by low-paid IT workers who can deal with the organizational services needed for basic web page programming. However, wide area networks, competitive web sites, and complex network applications require much more skill than a platform-specific IT job. Since the skills required for e-commerce are rare and in high demand, e-commerce might accelerate the upskilling trend in many countries by requiring high-skilled computer scientists to replace low-skilled information clerks, cashiers and market salespersons.
On one hand, people argue that we are spending less face time and becoming distracted about real life and more focused on our online lives. Conversely, other argues that we are more connected than ever, that we live a real time world, where global communities continue to get formed and interact. Managers and business owners may see technology as a means to improve productivity, employees may see technology as a threat to job security.
Human communication is shaped by the technology that is available at any given time. People often ask if technology isolates people or brings them closer. Technology does neither, it just transforms the way people communicate.
Although technology brings good change in the workplace, it also brings disadvantages to the workplace. With technology, workers tend to take advantages by doing their own personal things through internet while working. For example, workers tend to play online games, shopping online, watching online movie, facebooking, online chatting while working.
On the other hand one might also argue that technologies, by expanding the number of different tasks that are expected of workers and the array of skills needed to perform these tasks, might speed up work and increase the level of stress and time pressure on workers.
Communication technology lately creates a trend that majority of workers tend to get hooked online. Within the coverage of internet, they will just work or communicate with it. A lot of time will be spent working on a computer even at home, rather than physical interactions with friends and family.
In conclusion, humans evolve from time to time and Information technology is changing the world constantly. With sufficient self control and discipline, I believe that we can make use of the current available information technology without ever worrying about losing out in neither work or play.
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