It's not 9 to 5 for some of us anymore
As communication and collobration technology improves and workforce becomes increasingly global, the concept of having fixed work hours are fading more many. This is especially true for many in hi-tech industries and the so called knowledge workers.
The fading of the boundary between work and home is both a boon and a curse at the same time. On one hand the ability to work from home, or in some cases from anywhere, gives an individual a lot of flexibility. Personally for me, it let's me avoid traffic, save on gasoline and makes it very convenient if I have a dentist/doctor appointment or if a service-person is coming to my house to fix something. It enables me to scheduled meetings as early as 6:30am with colleagues in Europe or late in the evenings with colleagues in India and Singapore! Services such as Accessline enable me to make and receive phone calls and faxes anywhere I am and gadgets like Blackberry provide wireless access to e-mail.
The mobility provides lot of flexibility in term of work hours and location and also saves companies expensive real estate and energy costs.
There's also a downside to this mobility and flexibility however. One can sometimes feel distant and disconnected. This is why I make it a point to go to the office at least once or twice a week. Use of video conferencing and video chat can help mitigate this somewhat but face to face meetings are still very effective.
For people who are not disciplined, working by themselves at home or elsewhere could get distracting leading to loss of productivity and ultimately poort performance. On the other hand, it can also mean people work a lot more than the normal eight hours. Sometimes it is difficult to pull one self away from answering that e-mail or reading that document or writing that paper when your home and office are in the same location.
With increased connectivity, superiors also begin to expect people to be always available. This could mean you get an urgent e-mail or instant message from you boss when you are in the middle of a quiet dinner with your family or out enjoying a movie.
All said and done, this seems to be becoming more and more common and as one of the technology evangelists at our company put it, soon people are going to be surrounded by a swarm of devices always connected to the Internet.
The fading of the boundary between work and home is both a boon and a curse at the same time. On one hand the ability to work from home, or in some cases from anywhere, gives an individual a lot of flexibility. Personally for me, it let's me avoid traffic, save on gasoline and makes it very convenient if I have a dentist/doctor appointment or if a service-person is coming to my house to fix something. It enables me to scheduled meetings as early as 6:30am with colleagues in Europe or late in the evenings with colleagues in India and Singapore! Services such as Accessline enable me to make and receive phone calls and faxes anywhere I am and gadgets like Blackberry provide wireless access to e-mail.
The mobility provides lot of flexibility in term of work hours and location and also saves companies expensive real estate and energy costs.
There's also a downside to this mobility and flexibility however. One can sometimes feel distant and disconnected. This is why I make it a point to go to the office at least once or twice a week. Use of video conferencing and video chat can help mitigate this somewhat but face to face meetings are still very effective.
For people who are not disciplined, working by themselves at home or elsewhere could get distracting leading to loss of productivity and ultimately poort performance. On the other hand, it can also mean people work a lot more than the normal eight hours. Sometimes it is difficult to pull one self away from answering that e-mail or reading that document or writing that paper when your home and office are in the same location.
With increased connectivity, superiors also begin to expect people to be always available. This could mean you get an urgent e-mail or instant message from you boss when you are in the middle of a quiet dinner with your family or out enjoying a movie.
All said and done, this seems to be becoming more and more common and as one of the technology evangelists at our company put it, soon people are going to be surrounded by a swarm of devices always connected to the Internet.
posted by Anil | 3:47 PM
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