Telecommuting and the mobile worker Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Telecommuting and the mobile worker - Essay Example Regarding shifts, since telecommuters work from homes or nearby telework centres, those only available during non-conventional hours still have the flexibility to maintain their lifestyles and work their shifts too (Ellison, 2004). During disasters or when employees cannot access the central workplace, it is helpful if the firm has a separately located data bank, back-up servers and disaster recovery plans that allow employees access from any other location upon appropriate authorisation. Four advantages of telecommuting to the IT manager are reduced needs and costs associated with relocating equipment; fewer interruptions; higher capability to acquire talent; and reduced software license costs for personal devices (Hill et al, 2002). Since employees are free to work from locations of their convenience, they will find their own ways of mobility and hooking up to the infrastructure. This leads to fewer interruptions that arise when employees have to be moved to different areas of the office and having to be set up afresh. Since employees do not have to be in the same geographical region as the headquarters, appropriate talent can be sought from anywhere and contribute to the firm’s productivity. Finally, employees will often be responsible for upgrading their personal devices to keep up with technology and continue having access to their working information and stay connected. The disadvantages include the initial sourcing of appropriate technology; security threats; challenges in actively and continuously connecting employees; and efficient tracking of employees. Acquiring and implementing the technology to support telecommuting seamlessly is a burden to the IT budget. Then, since the IT manager has no foolproof way of controlling who shares remote devices with employees and accesses confidential information from them, security may be compromised. Further, since employees are only concerned with getting their