IT and the Design of Work

1
IT and the Design of Work

• Define telecommuting, electronic immigration,
  outsourcing
• Describe the demand for IT workers and how
  employers are meeting the demand
• Describe what is meant by virtual workers and
  discuss the reasons for hiring them
• Discuss the benefits, disadvantages, and issues
  related to telecommuting

2
Job Design Framework

• What tasks will be performed?
• How will the work be performed?
• Who will do the work?
• Where will the work be performed?
• How can information systems increase performance,
  satisfaction and effectiveness of the workers
  doing the work?

3
What tasks will be performed?

• IT changes the way work is performed
• IT changes communication patterns of workers
• IT changes the type of information available
• The Internet changes many jobs
• Work is more team oriented
• Informating vs. automating?

4
How will the work be performed?
or
5
Has IT resulted in more or less jobs overall?
6
Issues Related to IS Personnel

• Hiring
• Training
• Supervising
• Evaluating
• Motivating (Compensating)
• Retaining

7
Hiring Who will do the work?

• College recruiting of IS/CS majors
• Raiding other companies
• Hiring from other disciplines
• Beefed up training programs
• mainframers, older workers
• End-user computing
• Outsourcing

8
Outsourcing

• Purchase of a good or service that was previously
  provided internally
• Varying types and extent
• telecommunications
• software development
• operations
• the whole ball game

9
Outsourcing Options

• Foreign outsourcing electronic immigration
• India, Ireland, China
• Russia, Eastern Europe, South Africa,
• Outsourcing companies
• Temporary/Virtual workers

10
Temporary Workers Types

• Regularly scheduled part-time employees
• kept on payroll or on file
• hired intermittently or for short periods
• largest segment of temporary workforce
• Virtual workers Workers who arent employees of
  organization

11
Virtual Workers

• Consultants or self-employed professionals
• Temporary help service firms
• Unskilled labor
• Highly skilled professionals

12
Reasons for Hiring Virtual Workers

• Provide specific technical skills on temporary
  basis
• Allow workforce expansion during peak periods
• Cut costs (no benefits)

13
Supervising/Evaluating
14
Motivating/Retaining

• Rewards Salaries, Benefits and Perks
• Extrinsic vs. intrinsic
• Rewarding desired performance
• performance metrics must be meaningful
• harder to define when based on broader view of
  work
• Equity
• inside and out IT organization

15
Telecommuting Where will work be performed?

• Definition
• Benefits
• Costs
• Key Technologies
• Managerial Issues
• Other Issues

16
Telecommuting - What is it?

• Working from a home-based or remote office during
  normal business hours one (?) or more days a week
• How many days before you are a telecommuter?
• Do you need a computer to be a telecommuter?
• Types home-based, local telework center
• More than 20 million Americans telecommuted in
  1998

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Why Telecommuting? An Employees Perspective

• Better balance of work and personal life
• Increased schedule flexibility
• Reduced stress
• Saves commuting time
• Greater geographic flexibility
• Saves gas and transportation costs (also societal)

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Why Telecommuting? The Companys Perspective

• Increases productivity and morale (10-50)
• Demonstrates care, trust and empowerment
• Complies with Clean Air Act
• Reduces offices space and associated costs
  (25-75)
• Reduces recruitment and turnover costs (20-40)
• Can be utilized during disaster recovery

19
Telecommuting Potential Problems

• Increased stress from inability to separate work
  life from home life
• Harder to evaluate performance
• Employee may become disconnected from company
  culture
• Telecommuters more easily replaced by offshore
  workers
• Not suitable for all jobs

20
Telecommuting Managerial Issues

• Planning
• Organizing
• Staffing
• Directing
• Controlling

21
Telecommuting - Planning

• Costs (who pays)
• owning maintaining hardware
• insurance premiums
• possible zoning issues
• Pilot program
• Supervisor training
• Selecting qualified employees
• self-starters, self-disciplined, flexible
• disabled working mothers
• certain jobs

22
Telecommuting - Directing

• Morale of telecommuters
• Morale of those left behind
• Need for coordination
• schedules
• planned meetings

23
Telecommuting - Staffing

• Exempt or nonexempt (overtime)
• Disabled employee considerations
• Independent contractor vs. full-time permanent
  employee
• Workers compensation payments

24
Telecommuting - Control

• Monitoring employee activities
• (reported productivity increases)
• challenges managers (feel they are losing
  control)
• Security of data
• password authentication
• dedicated leased lines
• physically securing equipment
• firewalls

25
Telecommuting - Other Issues

• Personal
• dual career families working out of home
• Perceptions about peace and quiet, value of work
• Family
• 55 of all mothers with children less than 3
  years old now work (US DoC, 1989)
• computer addicts
• Psychological - stress of taking work home and
  keeping up

26
Technology Acceptance Model
Perceived Usefulness
Actual System Use
Behavioral Intention to Use
Perceived Ease of Use
27
IT Productivity Paradox

• Over 1 trillion dollars spent on computer and
  communication technologies since 1980
• Spending on IT equipment and software now
  accounts for about half of all investment by US
  firms
• Systematic relationship to financial performance?
• People make the difference

28
Does the IT Productivity Paradox Exist?

• YES
• No demonstrable increase in productivity outside
  of IT
• Increase in Total Factor Productivity (TFP) due
  to economic cycle
• Internet is a substitute to what is already
  available

• NO
• Too early to tell (need 50 penetration)
• Hard to measure
• Must consider new opportunities and improved
  quality
• 2/3 increase in labor productivity due directly
  to production of or investment in computers