Week 5 Final

Good Afternoon, how is everyone doing today? My name is Joshua Dodson and I will be discussing the use of the Virtual Workplace. Let's start with a scenario, suppose you live in New York and you're employed by a company from Los Angeles to track sales data in the Big Apple. Oh, and it just happens to be the year 1980. How would you keep in touch with the Los Angeles office? You'd probably use your telephone to check in every day or two, and you'd mail or fax papers back and forth across the country. Working away from your desk is nearly impossible because it would require toting around heavy stacks of paper and missing any phone calls that come in. If you have a computer at all, it only does a few data processing tasks and isn't very portable.

Fast-forward 30 years, same job. Now how would you keep in touch? You'd probably use e-mail to check in, perhaps several times a day, and you'd access the Los Angeles office's computer network online so you can upload and download data instantly. You might even use instant messaging or chat rooms for ongoing discussions with your West Coast co-workers. Working away from your desk is easy: just pick up your laptop and mobile phone, head down to your local café, and connect to their WiFi Internet while you grab some lunch.

This is how using virtual workplace can help you work remotely from various location and still be an effective and productive employee. Where we work, when we work, and how we communicate are being revolutionized, as a "seamless" web of electronic communications media e-mail, voice mail, cellular telephones, laptops with modems, hand-held organizers, video conferencing, and interactive pagers—makes teamwork and mobility a reality. Not only is work becoming seamless as it moves between home, office, and phone, but it also is becoming endless as it rolls through a 24-hour day. To be viable, virtual offices require four types of information:

Online materials that can be downloaded and printed

Databases on products and customers that are accessible from remote locations

Well-indexed, automated central files that are accessible from remote locations

A way to track the location of mobile workers

Virtual workplaces are not appropriate for all jobs. Jobs in sales, marketing, and consulting seem to be suited best, although even in these jobs, virtual work arrangements are not recommended for new employees or those who are new to a position. The key is to work with employees well ahead of planned transitions. Firms such as Lotus, IBM, and Hewlett-Packard have written guidelines, training, and networks of peers to facilitate the transition. For example, Hewlett-Packard's guidelines for virtual workplaces address topics such as who can participate, family and household issues, remote office setup, and administrative processes.

Assuming that virtual work arrangements are appropriate, and that at least some employees are willing to try them, how should a manager proceed? Two types of virtual work arrangements that are becoming more popular are virtual teams and telecommuting. Let's consider each of these:

In a virtual team, members' primary interaction is through some combination of electronic communication systems. Members may never "meet" in the traditional sense (Power Gizmos, 1997). Such an arrangement provides several advantages:

It saves time, travel expenses, and eliminates lack of access to experts

Teams can be organized whether or not members are in reasonable proximity to each other

Firms can use outside consultants without incurring expenses for travel, lodging, and downtime

Virtual teams allow firms to expand their potential labor markets, enabling them to hire and retain the best people regardless of their physical location

Employees can accommodate both personal and professional lives

Dynamic team membership allows people to move from one project to another

Employees can be assigned to multiple, concurrent teams

Team communications and work reports are available online to facilitate swift responses to the demands of a global market

Of course the major disadvantages of virtual teams are the lack of physical interaction—with its associate verbal and nonverbal cues—and the synergies that often accompany face-to-face communication. Despite these drawbacks, virtual teams are growing in popularity. "Groupware," computer-based systems explicitly designed to support groups of people working together, enables