Telecommuting Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Telecommuting - Essay Example There are various benefits that have been attained by firms that have adopted this method as part of their human resources management strategy. While some have had success other firms have experienced a negative effect with their bid to try and adopt telecommuting policies. A recent incidence may have brought the issues that are raised by telecommuting to the fore and this was with the recently appointed chief executive (CEO) of Yahoo banning the telecommuting policy of the company. Discussions have been raised on whether this was a good move or not? What may have called for her action? How does this affect the future productivity of Yahoo as a company? There are a number of advantages that a company may stand to gain from adopting a telecommuting policy. The positives To begin with are the environmental advantages that are to be gained by this policy. The increase in the number of people who are telecommuting means that there are fewer people on the roads driving. This reduces the amount of emissions that are released into the atmosphere and that contribute to green house gases. The other advantage that is provided by telecommuting is that of a social nature and this is as concerns the family unit. Telecommuting is beneficial to parents especially mothers who are accorded the ability to juggle taking care of their young ones while still being able to attend to their office duties. This makes for a stronger family unit and also there is the provision of the needed amount of care given to the children. All this though point to the individual advantage of telecommuting. The idea though is to look at the whole picture from the perspective of the company and how beneficial or otherwise this will be to the company. Though it should be mentioned at the e arliest that there exists different schools of thought on whether telecommuting is beneficial to a company or not but the overall opinion infers to it being more of beneficial. Improving performance Various different studies have been conducted that have looked at the improvements that a firm may get from having a section of its workers telecommuting to work. Some of these studies have found that telecommuting helps boost the performance of the workers and this has been attributed to a number of factors. One of these factors is the amount of time that is saved by workers who do not have to commute to work every day. Each day there is an increasing number of hours that workers spend on the road on their way to and from work. These hours can be better spent working on their various tasks if they telecommute. This savings are also in the fact that a large percentage of the workers are now not forced to endure traffic jams that also consume a lot of the time which limits the workers pro ductivity. If this time is spent doing company related tasks and assignments they can help improve greatly on the output of the company (Johnson, 2001, 169). The other idea is in the fact that those who telecommute to work have been found to have an increased amount of productivity as compared to their colleagues who do not telecommute. One of these studies was done by Staples of which 93% of the surveyed employee agreed to the fact that telecommuting does a good job as far as improving productivity is concerned. This point was supported by over half of the decision makers in the company (Nina, 2013). This has been attributed to there being improved employee morale, lower employee absenteeism and reduced employee stress. All these factors worked to improve the performance o

Communication technology and Westernization Essay

Communication technology and Westernization - Essay Example Although the democratic value of the internet has been cherished, on the contrary, the cyber culture is breaking the boundaries of ethical parameters in many aspects. Initially, it affects the moral perception of the new generation as they are exposed to uncensored websites. They are likely to be influenced by various misanthropic ideologies and racism (Clichà © & Bonilla, 2004, pp.32-33). Education is another notable area that has been affected by internet. In fact, the positive effects of communication technology have opened new opportunities in the field of education and employment. On the other hand, the technology has been widely used for academic misconduct which will have adverse effects on our education system as a whole. Another argument against the technology is that it has a westernizing effect on other cultures. As stated in Forbes & Mahan, (Eds.) (2005, p.135), since the primary language of the internet is English, it would transmit the elements of Western values including emphasis on material goods, entertainment, sex and romance. The other side of the argument is that though internet has a cultural and social influence, it does not necessarily eliminate the values of indigenous cultures. As Nakamura L (2007) states, internet has the potential for challenging western influence; and moreover, it can turn to be an effective device for non-western users. The author points out the example of New Media Center Sarai New Delhi which has developed software for indigenous non-literates. However, the so called potentiality of the technology needs to be further utilized. Obviously, a cyber society that has deep root in Western culture has emerged globally. People participate in the cyberspace social networks and interact with others who have similar interests and tastes. They express their feelings and ideas (whether right or wrong) without the fear of legal restrictions. The effect is that the more