Teleworking Essay Research Paper Teleworking Moving The

Teleworking Essay, Research Paper

Teleworking Moving The Idea Not The Person Teleworking is a relatively new and increasing form of working resulting from change in our culture employers, employees, the economy and society all benefit from teleworking. Human Culture has changed and is still changing. Our culture went from Gather-Hunters to agricultural to industrial to service oriented. In the last several years our service-oriented society increasingly is moving towards an informational based society. Looking at United States business the service sector is responsible for approximately three fourths of the employment. (Wright, 1998) “The computer is a machine for storing and processing information” (Wright, 1998) The technology that makes personal computers and related hardware work has made teleworking possible. To see how offices are moving into the information age look at any office. One will see lots of computers. “As many as 200 million personal computers are out there. (Wright, 1998). Compare this to business prior to the 1970s when there were virtually no personal computers in the average office. And now about forty percent of American homes even have them. (The World Almanac and Book of Facts 1999, 1998) Telecommuting and Teleworking are an outgrowth of our increasingly information centered society. Technology has enabled teleworking. “The Department of Transportation estimates that up to 15 million workers may be telecommuting in the next decade… A recent survey of 2,000 U.S. households … found that the number of telecommuters in the U.S. jumped to 11.1 million in 1997, up from 9.7 million in 1996.” (Secretariat for Electronic Commerce, U.S. Department of Commerce 1998) TeleCommute Solutions, Inc claims that ” Telecommuting Is Taking Off. More than 15 million people telecommute in the United States today.” (TeleCommute Solutions, Inc 1998) How Widespread Is Teleworking. Teleworking has become worldwide. It is being used in many countries. Teleworkers may use the Internet in their work. Thirty-five percent of today’s telecommuters use the Internet and e-mail…Information technology has opened up new opportunities for global commerce. The signals transmitted over the Internet do not recognize national borders. Work on the same project can be done in several places or several countries without workers having to physically relocate. Organizations can now deploy resources and operations around the world. Information about new product introductions, corporate earnings, forecasted sales patterns, and materials requirements can be shared almost instantaneously via corporate e-mail systems and value-added networks, and now, over the Internet. (Secretariat for Electronic Commerce, U.S. Department of Commerce 1998)The World Almanac and Book of Facts states that one hundred million people around the world now use the Internet. It projects that one billion people may use the internet by 2005, (1998) Looking at homes there are 24.9 million home based businesses in the U.S. (Starting a Home Based Business, 1996) Another author Barbara Weltman gives the number as thirty million. 1997) Some attempts have been made in the United States to estimate the number of teleworkers from the prevalence of home-based information technology and the uses to which its owners say it is put. During the 1980s, for instance, a Gallup poll found 40 % of home computer owners saying that they used them for “business or office homework” with a smaller proportion (27%) citing “business in home use”. Another survey, by Yankelovitch, Skelly and White, found 33% of home computer owners stating that their primary use was for business. An IBM survey found that 60% of its computers which sold for $2,000 or more were being used in the home and that over half of these home computers were being used primarily for business-related purposes. A further 11 % were being transported between home and office. Olson’s survey of 598 Datamation readers found that 64,5% of these data processing professionals sometimes worked at home in addition to their regular office work, 12,4% did it as an occasional substitute and 6,2% worked exclusively from home. More recently, attempts have been made to estimate the numbers of mobile workers from sales of portable technology such as mobile phones and laptop computers. In 1994, for instance, New York-based consultants Link Resources drew on such information (along with other sources) to produce their estimate that there are currently seven million mobile teleworkers in the USA, with number predicted to grow to 25 million by the year 2000. Many companies today are letting employees work at home. “More than 50% of US companies now allow their employees to telework (Manchester Metropolitan University, UK and DGXIII European Commission, 1998) What Is Teleworking.”Teleworking is a new form of working still in a process of evolution.” (Accart, 1997) This is a fairly new term often confused with telecommuting. The word “telecommuting” came first. The American Heritage dictionary of The English Language defines telecommuting as the practice of working at home by using a modem and a computer terminal connected with one’s business office. (1996) The word teleworking is too new to be found in dictionaries. Teleworking obviously refers to working by means of distance. “Networking and by extension teleworking are not a single, easily-measured phenomenon but, on the contrary, comprises a range of different type