Managing Teams - Visibility of Work

Managing Teams - Visibility of Work

Introduction

Internet is popular today. It contributes to a trend of virtual work. According to Healthcare Financial Management Association's research (2011), almost 70% company allow their employees to work from home. A famous information technology company, Google, also encourages their staffs to work from home. They work via email, Skype, or other internet tools. Many organizations realize that virtual work can gain a lot of benefits. However some managers' mind have already been out of touch. They cannot completely be at ease about invisible works which including virtual work. It strongly obstructs virtual work's development.

The Reason of Virtual Work Developing

One of the major reasons of virtual work developing is family factor. In 1990s, remote working has already begun to develop in the UK. It welcomed by the UK women, especially single parents with children. They need a flexible jobs for them to take care their children. Virtual work provides opportunity to them. Virtual work allow them work from home at anytime so that they take care both sides of work and children (Phizacklea & Wolkowitz, 1995).According to Phizacklea and Wolkowitz' survey (1990), over half of the home workers agreed that working at home is able to look after children(Table 1).

It showed that home working help the female worker and so it is popular for them.

Another reason why virtual work is developing rapidly is that the information technology has well developed. Technological advancements dramatically alter the organizational work structure. These advances provide various modes of telecommuting such as remote computer terminals, word processing stations and teleconferencing(e.g. Skype) (Ramsower, 1985). It caused the low cost of communicating in the Internet. Workers afford the equipment of telecommuting and internet service fee so that they can work with Skype, online document or voice-mail at home. The inexpensive telecommuting...