3. Home working or teleworking?
What is teleworking?
• Its just another way of saying working from home.
FACT: in the year 2005, 11% of the working population in Europe
was working at home using ICT.
How has new technology developments affected people?
1. Enabled them to become less tied to an office to do their work.
2. Ability to communicate with colleagues (via VPN which is
Virtual Private Network) from a distance has allowed
employees to work away from the office for a greater period of
time.
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What do you need if you want to work from home? Working
Practices
4. What do you need?
1. PC with internet access
2. Access to e-mail
3. Fax machine
4. Landline phone
5. Mobile phone
6. Printer/photocopier
7. Scanner (maybe)
8. Appropriate software
What types of employees can work from home?
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Working
Practices
5. Who can work from home?
× Professional services – tax advice or legal
advice
× Writing
These workers
× Book editing
require a word
× Proofreading of documents and books processing
× Translation of documents and web-browsing
× Technical + customer support software.
× Telesales + marketing
× Computer programming
What qualities allow a person to work from home?
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Working
Practices
6. Qualities required to work from
home
1. The person must be able to manage
their time well
2. They must be well motivated
3. They must have good communication
skills
4. They must have good self-discipline
5. They must have good time management
skills.
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Working
Practices
7. Remote working
• People live a distance away from the office (a travelling
sales man)
How do these workers stay connected with the office?
1. Devices that have wireless networking capabilities
(PDAs)
2. Mobile telephones
3. Laptops with wireless capabilities.
How do different people use remote working?
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Working
Practices
8. Remote Working - Uses
Engineers:
- can use a PDA to email their report
- can view technical manuals relevant to their field of work
- can use a sophisticated database + word processing software.
Doctors
-Use laptops with wifi and are able to connect to the high-security VPN
-Access patient records
Travelling salesmen:
- are able to take advantage of wireless hotspots using their laptop
-Can use their mobile phone to contact other salesmen
-Are able to connect to main office using wireless connectivity provded by
the hotel.
All these workers have RAS available to them. What is RAS? Back to
Working
Practices
9. RAS
• It stands for Remote Access Services.
• It allows the workers to access their desktop on their own PC
when they are away from home or from the office.
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Working
Practices
10. Office-Based Working
There are a couple of things that a company must be cautious
about before they can allow a person to work at home:
Will the worker spend their time wisely or will they just watch
television
Is the data with them safe or confidential if it is being
transmitted outside the company?
Will the employee be at risk from social isolation?
One thing that many employees them selves fear is that if the
company begins to decline, they will be one of the first to be
fired.
In more professional terms: A number of employees fear for their
jobs , feeling that if they are out of daily routine they might be
easier to lay off when the company is looking to make
redundancies. Back to
Requirements of an office Working
Practices
11. What things are necessary in an
office?
1. Desktop computers connected to a LAN or
WAN
2. Internet
3. Email facilities
4. Networked printers
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Working
Practices
12. Video Conferencing
What is a video conference?
It is the electronic equivalent of a conventional conference.
What are the essential components?
1. Standard PC (with keyboard and mouse, duh!)
2. Monitor
3. Speakers
4. Network connection
5. Webcam
6. Microphone
7. Videoconferencing
Where is it used?
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Working
Practices
13. Uses of Videoconferencing
In education
• Can be used by schools to communicate with other schools.
In medical applications
• Nurses and doctors can discuss patient cases when they are a long away
from each other
In businesses
• Can have face-to-face conferences
Teleworkers
• Communicate with their base office
What types of video conferencing is there?
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Working
Practices
14. Types of Videoconferencing
1. Individual access to the conference
2. Groups are involved rather than individuals
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Working
Practices
15. Phone Conferencing
These conferences can be held by:
i. Mobile telephones
ii. Landline telephones
iii. VOIP (Voice Over Internet Protocol) (What is VOIP?)
What is required to have a phone conference?
• Each person has their own PIN; this PIN is entered after the person has
dialled the phone number for the conference. They are then able to
access the conference.
• A time and place must be agreed upon.
• * The person who organizes the conference is provided with 2 pins:
1. Personal PIN
2. Participants PIN Back to
Working
Practices
16. VOIP
• This is when you can use the internet as a way of communicating.
Advantage: international calls or long distant calls are the same price as a
local call if not free.
Disadvantage:
a) Can only make the call if the person on the other end uses the same ISP
as you
b) ISP’s do not allow you to make emergency calls.
Back to Phone Back to
Conferencing Working
Practices
17. Instant Messaging
What is instant messaging?
- It is the exchange of text messages between 2 or more people logged into
a specific IM service.
What does it require?
1. Username
2. Password
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Working
Practices
18. Faxing
• Fax is a short form for facsimile transmission.
1. It is connected to a phone line
2. The document is scanned
3. The scanned document is transmitted through phone lines.
4. The fax machine on the other end then prints it out.
Disadvantage: A modem is required, making the speed of the transmission
slow.
Advantages: Documents are not considered to be legally accepted when sent
by email but are accepted when sent by fax. *A person is able to track
where the fax came from but cannot identify where an email came form*
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Working
Practices
19. Electronic Faxing
• The internet can be used for faxing.
• The user can ‘print’ the document directly to the faxing software.
• The user can then either receive this as a fax on their fax machine or if
they have the same software, they can use it to convert the document in a
form that can be stored.
Advantages:
i. Saves time of going to the fax machine in order to receive or send faxes
ii. Equipment costs are lower
iii. Running cost is lower
iv. Confidential faxes are slower
v. You don’t necessarily have to be in the office to collect the fax.
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Working
Practices