UNIT 9 - Computers in the Workplace

TABLE OF CONTENTS

CONTENT ..............................................................................................................2

1. COMPUTERS AND THE LEVEL OF EMPLOYMENT .................................2

2. COMPUTERS AND THE QUALITY OF WORKLIFE ...................................3

2.1 DE-SKILLING THE WORKFORCE ......................................................................3
2.2 INCREASING THE STRESS, DEPERSONALISATION, FATIGUE AND BOREDOM .....4
2.3 CREATING HEALTH AND SAFETY HAZARDS ....................................................7

3. TELECOMMUTING AND TELEWORK.........................................................9

3.1 THE BENEFITS OF TELECOMMUTING .............................................................10
3.2 THE DRAWBACKS OF TELECOMMUTING ........................................................12

4. SUMMARY.......................................................................................................13

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Content

1. Computers and the Level of Employment

The impact of new technologies in the workplace is an issue which has caused
controversy throughout history, the most famous example being the Luddites, who
went around the North of England in 1811-12 smashing new textile machinery which
they thought would decimate employment in the textile industry. When the microchip
was first introduced to public attention in 1978-9 equally dire predictions were made
about the impact of this latest new technology on employment levels right across
manufacturing industry and commerce.

Now the employment debate is pretty much off the boil for three main reasons, which
has helped take the heat out of the employment debate (Forestor and Morrison, 1990):

1. The introduction of computers into the workplace has been much slower than
expected because of a host of financial, technical, human and organisational
problems - including oversell by the computer industry
2. Unemployment has ceased to increase at such an alarming rate and indeed is
falling steadily in many OECD countries
3. Particularly in the US and Europe, the baby boom generation's entry into the
workforce is now largely complete and the arrival of the baby bust generation in
the 1990s will actually see some shortages of labour developing

However, there is little doubt that the computerisation of factories and offices has led
to the steady erosion of employment opportunities, particularly those for less skilled
manual workers and clerical workers. A British backed survey in 1987 found that
computers are replacing workers on a considerable scale, but in the medium rather
than short term. The author of the report says that:
‘The introduction of new technology led to increases in manning in about one case in
ten of those studied but to decreases, and often substantial decreases, in about one
case in five. Although there were important variations between sectors, those
workplaces using advanced technology to replace manual workers saw the biggest
decreases when observed over a four-year period. Job losses were also greater in the
private as opposed to public sector. However, most of the employment reductions
took place through natural wastage over a period of time rather than through
redundancies in the short term.’

Job losses have been particularly severe in traditional manufacturing industries, where
competition from newly industrialised countries and the process of de-
industrialisation have made matters much worse. The US economy generated no less
than 31m new jobs between 1972 and 1988 and a further 21m up to 1999. The net
gain of jobs amounted to 18.2m between 1974 and 1984, compared with a net loss of
2.8m jobs over the same period in the UK, France and Germany combined. But
although the total number of manufacturing jobs in the US actually grew by a couple
of million by 1995, employment in manufacturing industry as a proportion of the total
US labour force shrunk to a mere 8 percent. Employment growth will be
overwhelmingly in the service sector. Manufacturing employment as become small

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scale, high tech and dispersed geographically. Of America's net employment gains
since 1981, virtually all were generated in small firms employing less than 20 people.

Neither high technology industries nor high technology occupations have supplied
many new jobs in the past decade. Instead, job growth has favoured service and
clerical jobs that require little or no post secondary schooling and that pays below
average wages. Although employment in jobs related to high technology has grown
by 46% in 1995, this accounted for no more than 6% of all new jobs created in the US
economy. One trend that has further reduced job generation in the high tech sector is
the growing tendency of European countries and US to export routine data processing
jobs to cheap labour countries using satellite and telecommunications technology. US
corporations are sending data across the Atlantic for processing in Ireland, where
thousands of programming and data entry clerk jobs have been created. US companies
also extensively use Indian programmers and India has invested in a high quality
satellite link to boost this trans-national trade in offshore programming.

Now do Review Question 1

2. Computers and the Quality of Worklife

If we should be wary of computerisation that decreases the quantity of work available,
we should be equally concerned about the implementation of systems that may
degrade the quality of working life. This can happen through:
§ De-skilling the workforce by reducing the control, responsibility and job
satisfaction of skilled operators and /or
§ Increasing the stress, depersonalisation, fatigue and boredom experienced by
employees and / or
§ Creating health and safety hazards for the workforce such as eyestrain, tension
headaches, backache, RSI (repetitive strain injury) and perhaps even miscarriages
and birth defects

2.1 De-skilling the Workforce

In its most recent form the argument that automation deskills workers was conceived
by the labour-process school of thought. Labour process theorists argue that every
attempt to introduce new technology and redesign jobs is really an attempt by profit
motivated employers to increase their control over the workforce in order to exploit
them further. Skilled workers are an ever-present threat to management, so the
argument goes, because they are in a position to set their own pace of work and thus
they effectively control the work process. It can be seen that the labour process theory
is basically an updated version of the old Marxist idea that the workplace is
essentially a battleground between capital and labour, a forum where the class
struggle is fought out.

Computers deskill workers and thus degrade the quality of working life. Labour
process theorists contend that managers do not like skilled workers because they are

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semi autonomous: they therefore seek to remove skill from workers and transfer it to
machines. In manufacturing plants, this transfer of skills to machines creates more
jobs for less skilled machine minders but less jobs for skilled workers. Moreover,
despite the promise that new technology can improve the quality of working life,
many of the new jobs being created in futuristic factories are every bit tedious, fast
paced, and stressful as old style assembly line jobs.

The contrary view on automation argues that the notion that computers deskill
workers and degrade work is actually the opposite truth:

1. Robots cannot run factories; the proven unreliability of most IT equipment

actually increases the dependence of managers on their skilled workforce and not
vice versa
2. If robots cannot run factories, then neither can the traditional manager: The new
technologies introduce new modes of machine failure, new flaws in the control
systems themselves, and new challenges to the design of jobs. In such settings,
workers must control the controls

Far from deskilling the workforce, computer technology demands that employers of
the future need to constantly improve staff quality through learning and retraining.

Between proponents and opponents of deskilling there is a consensus that employers

are not by any means simply motivated by the desire to control their workforce. The
choice of new technology is dictated by competitive market pressures and traditional
managerial ideologies as much as power relations in the workplace.

IT is characterised by a fundamental duality:

§ Computers can be used by employers simply to replace people following the

traditional 19th century labour substitution logic
§ A computers capacity to generate vast amounts of information about the
underlying processes of production and administration enables employers to
educate or informate their workforce so that they can do their jobs better

Now do Review Question 2

2.2 Increasing the Stress, Depersonalisation, Fatigue and Boredom

Researchers who have studied the problem of white-collar productivity offer many
explanations for the poor pay-off from the introduction of computers into the office.
One suggestion is stress. In computerised offices stress related illness is costing
millions of dollars in lost working hours and reduced productivity. The author of a
Department of Education and Science report writes that
‘Automation is often seen as the solution to a messy office problem. But automating a
mess only creates automated mess. Many workers are inadequately trained for new
technology and they need help in coping with the stress arising out of change. Stress
in the modern office leads to loss of job satisfaction, low morale, absenteeism and
poor management labour relations.’See table 1 below

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Table 1: The Signs and Symptoms of Stress

The Signs and Symptoms of Stress

Physical headaches, chest pains, muscle aches, perspiration, insomnia, tight /
dry throat, shortness of breath, indigestion / stomach disorders and
fatigue
Psychological overeating or loss of appetite, increase use of alcohol / drugs /
smoking, poor job performance, poor personal hygiene

Computerised Monitoring of Employees

Another issue causing considerable controversy is that of computerised monitoring of

employees. In the past, employees were monitored directly by progress chasers,
foremen and supervisors. But these days monitoring can be done surreptitiously by
microchip. Computerised monitoring is constant, cheap and reliable. Supervisors are
no longer limited by what they can observe with their own eyes. A complete record of
employee performance exists in the print out.

Supporters of computer monitoring point out that managers are under ever increasing
pressure to improve productivity and competitive performance. Computer monitoring
provides clear, accurate performance measures and enhances the ability of managers
to motivate employees. Many companies have also suffered from industrial espionage
and employee thefts. Because of the growing sophistication of manufacturing
processes and office information systems, mistakes are more costly and computer
systems are more prone to employee sabotage.

Critics charge that computerised employee monitoring represents an intolerable

invasion of privacy and disregards human rights. It undermines trust, reduces
autonomy and fails to measure quality rather than quantity. They say that the practice
itself causes stress and, perhaps most damning of all, it is actually counter productive
because employee morale declines and with it productivity.

MIT's Gary Marx and Sanford Sherizen (Forestor and Morrison, 1990) have proposed
a code of ethics to control the use of computerised monitoring and to safeguard
privacy:

A Code of Ethics to control the use of Computerised Monitoring and to Safeguard

Privacy:

1. Applying to monitoring the same protection that applies to pre employment

background checks, that is, permit only information to be collected which is
directly relevant to the job
2. Requiring employers to provide employees with advance notice of the
introduction of monitoring as well as appropriate mechanisms for appeal
3. Requiring people to verify machine produced information before using it to
evaluate employees
4. Providing workers with access to the information themselves and provide
mechanisms for monetary redress for employees whose rights are violated or who
are victims of erroneous information generated by monitoring systems

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5. Applying statute of limitations on data from monitoring. The older the data, the
less potential relevance and the greater the difficulty employees have in
challenging it

Environmental Problems

There is also a set of environmental problems connected with modern offices. for
example, there is serious concern about the air quality in large office buildings due to
inadequate air-conditioning systems. After a few years of complaints, rumours,
absenteeism and high turnover, medical researchers have identified the phenomena
called sick building syndrome, which results in drowsiness, headaches, eye irritation,
sore throats. A lack of fresh air and the accumulation of fungi, bacteria, dust and
debris in ventilation ducts cause sick building syndrome. The air-conditioning
systems of high rise office buildings have been found to contain fibreglass, asbestos,
pollen, spores, carbon dioxide, tobacco smoke, formaldehyde from resins, ozone from
photocopiers, toluene from cleaning fluids and trichloroethane from office supply
fluids, among other irritants and suspected carcinogens.

Further aggravating the situation are problems with the design of offices and office
furniture, such as the fashion for open plan systems which reduce the amount of space
available per employee at the expense of efficiency, job satisfaction and increased
stress. Poorly designed seats, tables and workstations which do not conform to
ergonomics principles have been blamed for eyestrain, headaches, neck and shoulder
ache, and wrist and elbow disorders.

Perhaps the most important of all from the ethical point of view, computers increase
the sense of depersonalisation (Forestor and Morrison, 1990):
‘Interactions with computers tend to depersonalise both the user community and the
application itself. The resulting sense of anonymity can inspire a lack of respect for
the system and its resources, and a diminished sense of ethics, values, and morals on
the part of the affected people. The depersonalisation can increase the temptations to
commit misdeeds, diminish human initiative, and cause the abdication of decision-
making responsibility. The sense of ethical behaviour seems much more diffuse, even
though in principle it should be no different from ethical behaviour in general.’

Job Enrichment

A deliberate attempt can be made by management to humanise work, which has

become devoid of interest. This process involves the following actions:

§ Enlargement - each worker carries out a wider variety of operations than before
§ Rotation - each worker is trained to perform a number of different skills, and
changes round periodically
§ Involvement in Supervision - each worker is made partly responsible for planning,
scheduling, operating and maintenance of their work
§ Delegation of Authority - studies at ICI have demonstrated that job satisfaction
and productivity increased when jobholders were given more authority to manage
their own work

BIS2061 6 Unit 9
 Activity 1 – Job Enrichment

Now do Review Questions 3 -5

2.3 Creating Health and Safety Hazards

Video Display Units (VDUs)

VDUs were first introduced in the 1960s. But as their use has become more wide
spread, so have the allegations that VDUs cause eyestrain, tension headaches,
backache and perhaps even miscarriages and birth defects. In management, trade
union and feminist circles, the alleged health and safety hazards of VDUs have
become a big issue. VDUs are constructed in similar way to televisions but unlike a
television set most VDU operators sit very close to the screen. There are a large range
of radiation emitted from VDUs, see Table 1. If all VDUs were manufactured and
maintained correctly, then VDUs should pose no threat to the average healthy VDU
operator, and emitted radiation would be within currently accepted safety levels in
force today. Manufacturers have reduced levels of radiation emitted by modern
VDUs, however older and certainly faulty VDUs may be suspect. See Table 2 below

Table 2: The range of radiation's emitted from VDUs

Eight Types of Electromagnetic Radiation Produced in the VDU

1. X-rays are given off as a secondary emission from the impact of high-speed
electrons on the viewing screen, and from the electrodes of the beam gun. If the
anode voltage exceeds the maximum voltage rating of the tube, X-rays can leak
through the neck of the tube. Emissions of X-rays are usually stronger in colour
tubes.
2. Ultraviolet radiation and visible light are given off from the excitation of the
phosphors on the inner surface of the screen. Glass should absorb ultraviolet.
3. Infrared radiation is produced from the heat generated on the viewing screen by
the impact of the electrons on the phosphors.
4. The sweep oscillator circuits at the back of the cathode ray tubes produce
Microwaves.
5. Radio frequencies up to 11 MHz generated by the electrical pulses, which cause
the beam to go on and off eleven million times per second. Radio frequencies
are also generated by pulsation coming from the oscillator circuits.
6. Extremely low frequencies (ELF) between 50 to 60 Hz are produced from the
electrical pulses, which cause the beam to move vertically in order to refresh the
full frame on the screen 30 or 60 times per second.
7. Electrical pulses used to move the beam horizontally 15,000 and 20,000 times
each second generate very low frequency fields (VLF) at 15 to 20 kHz.
8. Static electricity is also produced as a result of the electrical power used to
operate the device and also from the electron beam, which is directed on to the
screen. The flyback transformer also produces static.

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The US National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health report was published in
1980 stated that there was cause for concern about possible physical and
psychological hazards arising from prolonged VDU use. At the three major sites
studied, VDU workers reported more instances of eyestrain and stiff necks, as well as
higher levels of stress, irritability, depression and anxiety. But the report left open the
question of whether the high levels of stress reported and associated psychological
problems were caused by the nature of the job or by the use of VDUs, or both.

The consensus of a 1981 conference was that the application of ergonomics, in the
form of better lighting, improved seating and more appropriate screen technology,
would only go some way toward solving both the physical and psychological
problems of VDU users and that job stress was a major causal factor. But a 1983
report appeared to conclude the opposite: namely that most of the physical problems
associated with VDU work could be cured by ergonomics:
‘Our general conclusion is that eye discomfort, blurred vision and other visual
disturbances, muscular aches and stress reported among VDU operators are probably
not due to anything inherent in VDU technology.’

In 1985, a Japanese study of 13,000 workers reportedly found a high level of

miscarriages, premature births and still births among VDUs operators. A Swedish
study of 10,000 programmers concluded that there were no statistically significant
differences between the pregnancies of women who had experienced low, medium
and high levels of exposure to VDUs. Meanwhile a 1987 Japanese study by Professor
Satoshi Ishikawa of Kitazato University found that 90 percent of VDU users reported
eyesight problems, 17 percent suffered from eyeball degeneration, and 27 percent
from reported stiff shoulders and necks, and 13 percent complained of insomnia.
Swedish researchers reported a link between electromagnetic radiation from computer
terminals and foetal deaths and deformities in pregnant mice, while research in the US
reported a significant increase in abnormalities among chicken embryos exposed to
low frequency magnetic fields.

Probably the most important report on VDU hazards to emerge in past years came in
June 1987 from the Kaiser-Permanente Medical Care program in Oakland, California.
The study of 1600 women clerical workers who had become pregnant since 1984
found that expectant mothers who had spent more than 20 hours per week at terminals
were more than twice as likely to suffer a miscarriage as other clerical employees.
However, the difference was not statistically significant. Job related stress and poor
working conditions for the VDU users could also not be ruled out as intervening
variables, said the researchers.

Repetitive Strain Injury (RSI)

For centuries, manual workers such as cobblers, blacksmiths, textile workers and
butchers suffer from strained ligaments and joints, which have sometimes necessitated
leaving their jobs. One such painful affliction is carpal tunnel syndrome, a nerve
block involving the carpal ligament in the palm of the hand. For years, too, writers
have complained of writers' cramp and sports' lovers have suffered from epicondylytis
or tennis elbow and tenosynovitis or golfers' wrist from over indulgence in their
favourite sport. But in recent years there has been evidence that the excessive use of
computer keyboards can also lead to a new, modern form of industrial injury: RSI.

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Typists and word processor operators seem particularly vulnerable since they can
make up to 45,000 keystrokes per hour. This can irritate or inflame tendons
(tenosynovitis or tendonitis) leading to unpredictable and excruciating pain. Yet a
majority of reported RSI cases, especially in Australia, cannot be traced to tendons or
indeed to any others parts of the human body. A majority it seems are conversion
illnesses such as hysterical blindness or shell shock which can be psychological or
even sociological in origin (Forestor and Morrison, 1990).

Researchers from Carnegie-Mellon University, US have suggested that poor

ergonomic design of equipment is associated with RSI, while work practices such as
speed ups, heavier workloads, greater monotony, fewer rest breaks, non-standard
hours are also related to the incidence of RSI. In particular
‘Those using keyboards for prolonged, rapid and repetitive tasks such as data entry or
word processing seem more prone to RSI than computer programmers, computer
scientists and journalists who use keyboards in a more leisurely and varied way. But
this could mean either of two things: that RSI sufferers get sick from physically doing
the job or that they get sick from having such boring, dead end, monotonous and low
status jobs.’

The European Community has recognised the importance that ergonomics plays in the
RSI debate. The following EC directive was issued accordingly:

EC LEGISLATION: DIRECTIVE 90/270/EEC

‘The space in front of the keyboard shall be sufficient to provide support for the hands
and arms of the operator.’

Now do Review Question 6

3. Telecommuting and Telework

Telecommuting and telework are synonyms for the use of telecommunication to work
outside the traditional office or workplace, usually at home or in a mobile situation.
According to one study, telecommuting has been growing at 15% a year since 1990 in
North America. 80% of Fortune 1000 companies are likely to introduce it within the
next two to three years. Although work at the company premises is not likely to
disappear, new forms of telecommunication such as voice and picture communication
and groupware are likely to make telecommuting more social in the future.

Factors that will continue to affect the future of telecommuting include the availability
of bandwidth and infrastructure in a given country; social methodologies for
balancing work control and work freedom; the perceived values and economies in
telecommuting; and the opportunities and need for working collaboratively across
large distances, including globally.

With the arrival of the Internet and the Web as a kind of standard for groupware, one
can see a number of new organisations being developed as virtual organisations

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whose members work almost entirely through telecommunication with an occasional
face-to-face meeting.

There is a very useful Telework Resources web site <link to:

>http://www.mother.com/~dfleming/dmflinks.htm

3.1 The Benefits of Telecommuting

Virtual Office

Technological changes in the office have transformed the very idea of an office from
a spatial to a temporal concept. Companies, for example, AT&T pioneered the
introduction of the idea of the virtual office. Employees were provided with a mobile
office, complete with laptop, fax, and cellular phone, and literally sent home.
Companies, anxious to increase the productivity of their workers, see telecommuting
as the wave of the future. Russell Thomas, a telecommuting specialist at AT&T says
that
‘Before we adopted telecommuting we had situations that people would drive one and
a half hours to the office, stay for a few hours, drive an hour to visit a client, come
back to the office, then leave for the day. Obviously there was a big loss in
productivity going on.’

Telecommuting is also reducing the amount of office space required to conduct

business. Companies are cutting their real estate costs by implementing a
telecommuting plan. Some companies are taking the concept of a virtual office even
further, introducing the idea of hoteling. Any employee can who needs to use an
office to meet clients or hold a meeting can reserve a desk in advance by calling in his
or her request to a small staff of hoteling managers. Before the employee arrives, the
managers will attach the employee's nameplate on the door and even place family
photos on the desk to make him or her feel comfortable. Examples of companies that
have adopted the hoteling concept include Ernst and Young, where everyone below
the senior manager level became deskless. Now, if they want to use an office they
have to make a reservation. IBM took away the desks of more than 5,000 of its
employees and told them to work at home, in their car, or at their clients' offices. IBM
expected to save between 15 to 20 percent in space requirements.

Improved Safety

Rick Johnson advocates

‘Telecommuting as a means to save lives, reduce injuries, and improve health, thereby
enhancing the quality of life for workers and the general public everywhere.’

There are significant safety benefits to telecommuting. A few examples are:

§ Reduced risk of traffic related injury and death to school children, pedestrians,
highway workers, and other traditional commuters
§ Reduced risk to children by allowing them to remain at home with their primary
care-givers rather than housed in day-care centres; and
§ Reduced impact of terrorist bombings or bomb threats, because fewer employees
(and their children) are in a centralised location

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The reduced risk of death or injury, for example by crashes, road rage, etc., to
commuters on the highways is a very important safety benefit of telecommuting.
Approximately 40,000 people die in crashes every year in the US, many hundreds of
thousands more are injured, and billions of dollars worth of property is damaged.
Road rage is becoming more widespread every year as commuters become more and
more intolerant of increased and unnecessary traffic.

There are many people commuting home from work suffering from fatigue, after they
had to prepare for work, commute to work, and perform their work for many hours
away from their homes. These people represent an unnecessary hazard to other people
who must use the highways.

Telecommuting reduces traffic and the resulting hazards that unnecessary traffic
causes. There are many must-do commuters who absolutely have to travel, because
they do work that is hands on, or they are paramedics, fire fighters, police, emergency
medical technicians, transport workers, tourists, etc. If roads become less crowded,
because more people telecommute, the must-do commuters will be able to more easily
and more safely reach their destinations. Also, if roads become less crowded, less
roads will need to be built, and existing roads and bridges will last longer.

Existing roads will become safer, too, as some of the inevitable savings can be spent
on improved road maintenance and infrastructure upgrades. There is also the issue of
economic equalisation of car safety: telecommuting especially helps the poorer
workers, who may not yet be able to afford as good, as safe, and as well maintained
an automobile, as wealthier workers.

Improved Health

There are significant health benefits to telecommuting, as well. Examples include:

§ Reduced spread of communicable diseases (colds, flu, etc.)

§ Reduction in stress related illnesses
§ Reduced production of pollutants that lead to increased health problems
§ Continuous access to homes during the day when there are natural disasters or
major storms, allowing homeowners the opportunity to prevent property damage
that could cause stress related and other types of health problems
§ Improved access to individual health needs (medications, facilities, etc.) for
persons with existing health problems or disabilities; and
§ The potential for increased care of children in their own homes by their own
parent or parents

People, who can stay home and work rather than bringing their disease (a cold, for
example) into the office, are preventing diseases from spreading to other co-workers
(and their co-workers' families). Conversely, by staying home, they are not becoming
infected by communicable diseases from co-workers, who decide to bring them into
the office. The commute, itself, is enough to cause stress related illnesses for many
people and sometimes just the distance and time involved in commuting to and from
work can cause unnecessary physical discomfort for some people. Telecommuting
can eliminate the stress and discomfort of the commute.

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Because they are not producing as much pollution by commuting every day back and
forth to the office, telecommuters are improving not only the quality of the air they
breathe, but the air that everyone breathes. Many people do not have the access they
need to their medications during commutes or during the time they spend on their job
sites. Many people also require or desire special equipment and facilities in order to
address a variety of health conditions or physical limitations. Telecommuting
accommodates the needs of people who would prefer to be closer to their homes,
where they can better access their own familiar facilities and living environment.

Telecommuting also allows parents to care for their children in their own homes, and
in many instances could reduce or remove the need for any childcare outside the
home. The impact of telecommuting on childcare cannot be overemphasised.
Telecommuting improves the quality of care, not only for telecommuters, who can
have their children home, but also for other workers who cannot telecommute. Those
other workers will have access to childcare facilities that are less crowded and can
provide better services, because they will be better staffed.

Reaping the Benefits for the Community

Telecommuting could help revitalise dormitory villages with more activity during the
day and the potential for knock-on local economic effects. Also working people
would be able to participate more in the life of their communities, as councillors,
governors, magistrates or performing other voluntary work.

Activity 2 – Enabling Technologies

3.2 The Drawbacks of Telecommuting

Spatial Disengagement

While some employees welcome the new freedom that comes with less supervision,
others say they miss the camaraderie and social interaction that comes with face-to-
face office operations. Steve Patterson, vice president of Gemini Consulting
Company, say that in a growing number of companies today, workers interact less
with each other face-to-face in a traditional office setting. Patterson cautions that the
cost savings in reducing office space requirements need to be weighed against less
tangible, equally significant, psychological costs of less frequent interaction,
including the potential weakening of corporate bonds and feelings of loyalty to the
firm. Video conferencing could help ease the psychological trauma that comes with
spatial disengagement allowing multiple number of people to converse and perform
work together in an electronic version of face-to-face communication so as
‘To recapture some of the flexibility and human warmth that electronic
communication has lacked.’

BIS2061 12 Unit 9
Intrusion of the Workplace in the Home

Some employees have highlighted the intrusion of the workplace in the home setting.
The office at home is a constant reminder of work. In addition, there is the real
problem of defining concrete working hours when the distraction of home life is a
constant presence. Working hours and social / home time can become blurred.

Now do Review Question 7

4. Summary
This unit has introduced some of the key concepts and issues that are invoked when
technology is introduced into the workplace. You have seen what computerisation of
the workplace is about and why it is important. You have also been given an overview
of the arguments for and against telecommuting.

BIS2061 13 Unit 9