Based On Slides Prepared by Cyndi Chie, Sarah Frye and Sharon Gray. Fifth Edition Updated by Timothy Henry

Chapter 6:
Work
Based on slides prepared by Cyndi Chie,

Sarah Frye and Sharon Gray.
Fifth edition updated by Timothy Henry
Copyright © 2018, 2013, 2008 Pearson Education, Inc. All Rights Reserved
 Changes, Fears, and Questions
 Impacts on Employment
 Employee Communications and Monitoring
 The introduction of computers in the workplace
generated many fears
 Mass unemployment due to increased efficiency
 The need for increased skill and training widens the
earning gap
 New trends still generating fears
 Offshoring of jobs will lead to mass unemployment
 Employers use of technology to monitor their
employees
Job creation and destruction
 A successful technology eliminates or reduces some jobs
but creates others
 Reduced the need for telephone operators, meter
readers, mid-level managers
 New industries arise
 Internet
 Cellular communications
 Lower prices increase demand and create jobs
 Music industry changed from serving the wealthy to
serving the masses, employing more than just
musicians
Job Creation and destruction
 Unemployment rates fluctuate
 Growth of computers has been steady, while
unemployment has fluctuated widely
 Unemployment has more to do with an economy’s ability
to adapt to change.
Job Creation and destruction
 Are we earning less?
 Since the 1970s, wages decreased but fringe benefits
increased
 People work fewer hours since the Industrial
Revolution
 Decrease in take-home pay may be due to other
factors (e.g. increased taxes)
 Purchasing power increases as prices fall
Changing Skills and Skill Levels
 New products and services based on computer
technology create jobs in design, marketing,
manufacture, sales, customer service, repair, and
maintenance.
 The new jobs created from computers are different from
the jobs eliminated.
 New jobs such as computer engineer and system analyst
jobs require a college degree, where jobs such as bank
tellers, customer service representatives and clerks do
not.
 Companies are more willing to hire people without
specific skills when they can train new people quickly and
use automated support systems.
Discussion Questions
 What jobs have been eliminated due to technology?
 What jobs that were once considered high-skill jobs
are now low-skill due to technology?
 What new jobs have been created because of
technology?
 Do automated systems mean fewer jobs for
high-skilled workers?
 Will human intelligence in employment be “devalued”?
Telecommuting
 Working at home using a computer electronically linked
to one's place of employment
 Mobile office using a laptop, working out of your car or
at customer locations
 Fulltime and part-time telecommuting
Telecommuting
 Benefits
 Reduces overhead for employers
 Reduces need for large offices
 Employees are more productive, satisfied, and loyal
 Reduces traffic congestion, pollution, gasoline use, and
stress
 Reduces expenses for commuting and money spent on
work clothes
 Allows work to continue after blizzards, hurricanes, etc.
Telecommuting
 Problems
 Employers see resentment from those who have to
work at the office
 For some telecommuting employees, corporation
loyalty weakens
 Odd work hours
 Cost for office space has shifted to the employee
 Security risks when work and personal activities
reside on the same computer
 Would you want to telecommute? Why or why not?
 How has technology made entrepreneurship easier?
Harder?
A Global Workforce
 Outsourcing - phenomenon where a company pays
another company for services instead of performing
those tasks itself
 Offshoring - the practice of moving business processes or
services to another country, especially overseas, to
reduce costs
 Inshoring - when another company employs thousands
of people in the U.S. (e.g. offshoring for a German
company means inshoring for U.S.)
 Almost 5% of U.S. workers are employed by foreign
companies
A Global Workforce
 Problems and side effects of offshoring
 Consumers complain about customer service
representatives, because accents are difficult to
understand
 Employees in U.S. companies need new job skills (e.g.,
managing, working with foreign colleagues)
 Increased demand for high-skill workers in other
countries forces salaries up
A Global Workforce
 Ethics of hiring foreign workers
Learning About Job Applicants
 The Web and social media provide new means of
information collection on job applicants. Employers:
 search online newsgroups and social networks
 hire data-collection agencies
 use a variety of screening methods to efficiently
reduce a large pool of applicants to a reasonable
number
 Some job-seekers attempt to clean up their online
persona.
Risks and Rules for Work and Personal
Communications
 Employee monitoring is not new
 Employers have always monitored their employees.
 Degree of detail and frequency of monitoring has
varied depending upon kind of work, economic factors,
and available technology. (Time-clocks and logs.)
 Early monitoring was mostly ‘blue-collar’ (factory) and
‘pink-collar’ (telephone and clerical) jobs
 Bosses patrolled the aisles watching workers
 Output counts at the end of the day
Communications
 Separating – or merging – work and personal
communications
 Employers often prohibit employees from using their
work email, computers, and other devices for personal
use.
 What about employees using personal email accounts,
social media, laptops, smartphones, and other devices
for work?
 Overhead of managing and maintaining systems to
work with variety of brands and operating systems
 Security of company information and operations
Communications
 Monitoring employer systems
 Roughly half of major companies in U.S. sometimes
monitor the email or voice mail of their employees on
company systems.
 Most companies monitor infrequently, some routinely
intercept all email.
Communications
 Many major companies use software tools that provide
reports on employee Web use.
 Employees spend time on nonwork activities on the
Web
 Some companies block specific sites (e.g. adult
content, sports sites, job search sites, social-network
sites)
Communications
 Purposes of monitoring employee communications
include training, measuring or increasing productivity,
checking compliance with rules for communication,
and detecting behavior that threatens the employer
in some way.
 Concerns over security threats such as viruses and
other malicious software
 Concerns about inappropriate activities by employees
(e.g., harassment, unprofessional comment)
Law and cases for employer systems
 Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA) prohibits
interception of email and reading stored email without a
court order, but makes an exception for business systems
 Courts put heavy weight on the fact that computers,
mail, and phone systems are owned by the employer
who provides them for business purposes
Law and cases for employer systems
 Courts have ruled against monitoring done to snoop on
personal and union activities or to track down whistle
blowers.
 Court decisions sometimes depend on whether an
employee had a reasonable “expectation of privacy.”
 Many employers have privacy policies regarding email
and voice mail.
 The National Labor Relation Board (NLRB) sets rules and
decides cases about worker-employer relations.
Personal social media
 Basing disciplinary action on personal, nonwork social
media is more controversial because it extends employer
control beyond the workplace.
 Content in social media is often widely distributed; thus
impact is stronger than that of a private conversation.
 Employer restrictions on nonwork social media do not
violate employee’s freedom of speech (unless, in some
cases, when the employer is the government).
 It is reasonable for employers to fire employees for
content of their blogs, tweets, or posts on social
networks?
 Are there good reasons for employers to be concerned
about what their employees post in such places?
Monitoring location and equipment usage
 Electronic identification badges that serve as door keys
 Provide increased security
 Allow monitoring of employee movement
Monitoring location and equipment usage
 GPS tracks an employee's location
 Used in some hospitals to track nurse locations for
emergency purposes, also shows where they are at
lunch or when they use the bathroom
 Used to track long-haul trucks to reduce theft and
optimize delivery schedules, also detects driving
speeds and duration of rest breaks
 Employees often complain of loss of privacy
 How much privacy is reasonable for an employee to
expect in the workplace?
 Under what circumstances is it appropriate for an
employer to read an employee's email?

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