Uses of Information & Communication Technology- Free-Samples

Question: Discuss how the after-hour technological use for work Impact Productivity and what is the role of HRM in this Process? Answer: Introduction Over the recent past, both managers and other stakeholders stay connected to their workplace through mobile communications such as mobile phones, laptops among other devices. This has been fuelled by the digital era we are in and is becoming a culture. This is what is often referred to as after work technological use and it has various impacts on productivity in the workplace. It has really affected how things were conducted and how they were operated in most of the companies and organizations. This habit is really growing and is being adopted both intentionally and unintentionally to become the company behavioral norm (Aditya Erdlyi, 2014, pp.89-96). This article digs deep into the resultant effects of after-hour technological use and their impacts. It also looks at the role of human resource management in this growing behavioral norm. Literature review After hour technological use is a habit that has developed over the recent past which is being sophisticated too much by technological advancement. It means the extra hours that employees remain connected to their workplace by use of mobile technology like cell phones as well as laptops. Research shows that this is an increasing habit now that technological advancement is tremendously increasing. He argues that most of the employees do not terminate work at the conduct hours but remain present even at home to cover the flaws left at a workplace or any emerging activity. Workers have a diverse feeling depending on how the after hour technological use is employed. He argues that even though it might be too exciting, some employees find it irrelevant to be conducted for work matters even after having duly completed their working hours (Arechar Kraft-Todd, 2017, pp.44-50). They feel bothered being questioned about things they have not done at work after having settled at their homes wit h their families, something that ought to have been questioned while at work. It is argued that after hour technological use refers to the extra conduct hours that employees and other organization stakeholders engage themselves with their workplace, not physically but by the use of mobile technology. This argument bases its knowledge on the fact that after work most of the employees leave for home. However, whether intentional or not intentional they dont remain completely out of the work vicinity but instead stay just as they were physically in work by conducting activities by use of mobile technology rather than being physically there. He argues that this usually has several impacts both to the employees and the organization they work for. The resultant effect is experienced by the organization in terms of increased productivity while some employees feel bothered for staying at work having finished their scheduled working hours as stipulated (Azam et al., 2016, pp.70-76). However, he argues that some employees love the practice and are usually proud of being in connection with their companies even when not physically present. Research about the issue of after work technological use and claims that any work was done by an employee whether physically present or not present is work done for the well being of the company and should be accounted for (Bhushan et al., 2016, pp.54-60). He claims that this after hour conduct is just the same as working from home and should be considered in the employees pay. He considers every work done by an employee accountable and payable regardless of the geographical area it is done. He says that even work done overseas after the scheduled working hours are over equals the work done physically at the workplace and should be counted as work done by the employee and in any case should be paid. He says that if it were not for the extra technological conduct hours most of the organizations could be closed today. He also says that increased productivity in most of the companies has been fuelled by the after work technological use. It is also argued that flaws and mistakes made dur ing the real working hours are corrected during this extra hour technological conduct (Bono et al., 2013, pp.56-70). He also says that work not done or insufficiently done is put up for during this after our technological use and should be paid for like any other work. It is the role of human resource management to ensure that these extra worked hours are paid despite the fact that they are not worked from the workplace. It is its role too to ensure that employees are not bothered too much minute after the other and they are conducted whenever needed the most. Contribution on the same says that after work technological use is one of the emerging issues in organizations and most of the companies today are adopting it so much (Brynjolfsson McAfee, 2014, pp.201-10). He argued that this idea is being adopted by even small scale retailers because it is a fruit of technology that is inevitable. He says that this idea, whether bothering the employees or pleasing them cant in any way be avoided because it is the pay of technology most organizations are looking for. He says that employees dont actually finish working at their workplace but stop at a particular point. He believes that whatever employees do at the extra conduct technological hours as part of their work done at their own convenient time. He argues that logging into the staff portal of the company website to update some data from home by use of a laptop or a Smartphone is work that is put up for. He claims that being conducted by your boss to do a few tasks after work using your mobil e gadgets is alerting you that you did not finish your work. He claims that work is nowadays divided into two: the physical part that is done at the workplace and the technological part that is done by the use of mobile devices. This is actually what is referred to as after hour technological use according to him. He adds and says that mobile technological use at home to finish a particular work task deemed for completion within a specified duration of time is completing your second part of what you are employed to do. Best practices, issues, and problems Indisputably, there are some aspects that are working well and others failing in the after hour technological use. This is actually due to the fact that everything regardless of how bad or good it usually has its merits and demerits. For instance, productivity at the work place is growing at a promising rate. It is believed that since the adoption of the after hour technological use approach most of the organizations are growing tremendously with others that were down reviving and sprouting promisingly (Chesley, 2016, pp.76-82). It has been seen that this is a concept that is universal and not only applicable to information technology based institutions but any institution can adopt the same. It has been observed that in most schools especially those of secondary and tertiary learning teachers and lecturers employ this principle widely It is said that most of the lecturers and teachers upload student marks to the relevant portals using their mobile devices and this is inevitable. Again, after hour technological use that has sprouted over the recent past due to increased technological advancement has affected production quality so much (Clark, 2015, pp.5-10). It is also argued that most of the employees work for long hours in the work place and by the middle of the day, they are tired and weary. This would actually result in mistakes because getting tired and weary is being prone to making errors. He says that the extra mobile technological hours are mostly used to correct the flaws and errors made during the day while the employee was weary so that at the end of the day quality and flawless products are produced. It is argued that since this concept of after hour technological use came into being the quality of output products is increasingly becoming admirable (Derks Bakker, 2016, pp.79-88). This is mainly because there are very few or no mistakes made and if they are there they are corrected at the employees convenient time to give out the best quality. Another mentionable merit of this approach is bettering the living styles and standards of the employees. This is only if it is applied as required. As discussed earlier in this article, some organizations treat these extra technological conduct hours as work done by the employees and that ought to be paid. If this is done then the employees get an extra amount of cash that they use to better their lives. This approach is working well where companies are willing to put up for financially the work done by employees even in nonworking hours (Douglas, 2016, pp.9-13). This approach is also a motivating factor. It is working well to motivate the employees and give them an induced passion for working for the company even if the normal co duct hours are over (Webster, 2014, pp.90-100). This is one of the things that keep a company or organization growing. This is due to the fact that a contented employee in the working system is likely to give more in terms of attention and productivity to the organization or company. In spite of the fact that there are quite a good number of merits and advantages that accrue to an organization or a company and employees as a result of after hour technological use approach, there are also a number of issues and problems behind it. To begin with, employer employee clashes are inevitable. It is not all employees who deem extra conduct with their organization whether physical or through mobile communications helpful (Grint Woolgar, 2013, pp.75-80). Some employees are just contented with their basic pay and want to spend most of their of work hours with their families and friends. However, when mobile technological communication is called for in off work hours some employees feel bothered and don't want to engage themselves in activities of the company when they have done all their part at the workplace (Hartmann et al., 2017, pp.78-80). Some employees regard this as disturbance and this will create a void for the human resource management to create awareness about t he issue and define the borders or extent at which this conduct is actually due. Another problem arises when the company is unwilling to put up for the work done in the after work technological use. It should be appreciated that the much done by mobile communications is as helpful as if not more than working from the workplace. Much is done by use of mobile communications at home and this corrects many things that could otherwise have affected production in that organization (Ippolito Ippolito Jr, 2017, pp.23-30). For instance, working from home after conduct hours using mobile devices saved the University of Pretoria in South Africa quite large amount money. An error that could leave the financial department in lavishing financial problem was corrected by a phone call followed by logging into the portal using a laptop from the comfort of home. This is a relevant case. Another issue that has been brought about by after hour technological use is laxity among some of the employees. It has been noted that there has emerged a negative impression by the employees that errors done during the day are correctable later. Some employees dont work efficiently and keenly as they used to do because they have the notion that if in any case their boss is not contented with the work they have done he will call them and give them the way forward (Johnston, 2015, pp.45-50). This has greatly affected some employees performance. Again, some employees have been used to being called almost daily by their bosses to correct or do a few things at home and this has given them an impression that they can never be perfect. This has slowly affected their performance in the sense that they feel that they cannot do anything perfect in one time (Jones et al., 2014, pp.162-70). These bosses have made their employees believe that there is nothing that can be done perfectly well in one go. Here comes the role of the human resource management that has the obligations to educate their employees and stand on their behalf to show that something perfect is always possible. Discussion and analysis Now, lets thoroughly analyze this issue of after hour technological use and see how some of the issue and related problems can be solved. As discussed earlier, one of the problems associated with this approach that has grown and become a behavioral norm as a result of technological advancement is disturbances and bother to the employees. It has been evident that some bosses are taking advantage of technological improvement to over task their employees (Mizutani, 2016, pp.77-80). For instance, an employer could engage an employee in sorting some data at home using his laptop that could have otherwise been done the following day. Others are taking advantage of their juniors by using this approach to give them some task that that does not belong to them. In one particular case, a senior employee used to give his junior his task because he was too lazy and spent most of the time engaging in activities that do not relate to the company. It was once asked whether employees should receive o vertime after answering emails at home after working hours are over (Knox Marston, 2016, pp.71-75). Some scholars argue that any communication purposed for an organization even if after working hours is as important as a staff meeting discussion. The question of whether employees should receive overtime after receiving and replying to emails at home is too tricky and needs a high level of intellectual know-how to answer. However, the human resource management should lay the extent at which after work magnitude should deserve over time. It has also been seen that another problem that arises due to the use of after hour technology of mobile communications is laxity and laziness. This can take two forms; either employee or employer laxity which are fuelled by different factors. Employee laziness is incited by the notion that whatever is not covered during the normal working hours can be compensated for during the after-work hours and still get more revenue (Mowery, 2015, pp.32-38). This is a vice that should be avoided at all cost because it is equivalent to using fraudulent means to steal for the company and legal actions can be taken. Sometimes an employee could also be used to being called by his employer on daily basis to correct a few things. If this happens, the employee gets to a point of thinking that he or she can do nothing perfect because the employer corrects him daily (Spector et al., 2015, pp.65-70). This will make the employee perform poorly without regarding efficiency because he or she knows after the end of the day the boss must see flaws in his or her work. The other form of laxity is employer or boss laziness. Human Resource strategies and solutions Ensuring responsibility Human resource management has the responsibility to ensure that all the employees and organization stakeholders perform their duties as expected. In the above discussion, it has been found that most of the employees especially those holding top positions in management usually neglect their duties and delegate them to their junior staff in a way that is not appropriate. Abandoning your duty and giving it to other people to undertake at their after normal work hours is not only illegal but also unethical (Parsons, 2014, pp.892-98). Therefore, Human Resource management should ensure at all cost that the set rules are followed to the latter and oversee that there is no an employee who takes an advantage of the other. In this way, clashes will be very few. Educating employees Today, employees are not living in harmony with one another due to lack of proper education. It is said they most of them dont know what is expected of them and borders within which they should operate. As a result, there has been a never ending line of clashes amongst them themselves. For instance, they clash daily about how after hour technology should be employed so as to be regarded as having used in the right manner (Pielot Church, 2014, pp.54-64). Therefore, the Human Resource management is obliged to the provision of relevant education and awareness to help employees not class over the issue of after hour technological use otherwise the clashes will never end. Setting limit for conversations deemed for payment There also has been a question about whether employees should receive any overtime for answering a call or replying to an employer email regarding the work place. It has not been set to default to what extent a communication intended for the workplace should be regarded as being enough for payment. This is mostly what has been causing misunderstanding amongst many of the employees (Roh Seol, 2014, pp.90-100). It, therefore, becomes necessary for the human resources management to define which communication should deserve payment and which should not Setting borders for what is urgent or not It was discussed earlier in this article that most of the junior employees are getting bothered too much by being engaged in activities that could otherwise have been scheduled for the following day. This is one of the problems that are arising in management. When senior employees feel that there is something that ought to be done they call the junior employees to take that task in the off work hours. Some things that junior staffs are instructed to do are not even too urgent (Rubin Babbie, 2016, pp.43-50). Therefore, it is important for the human resource management to set borders for what ought to be termed as urgent and emergency. It should ensure that employees are not burdened with activities that are not urgent and that can comfortably be performed the following day. Conclusion After hour technological use is inevitable and is actually becoming a behavioral norm. However, this should not blind us not to take responsibility as required of us during the working hours aiming at compensating for the neglected responsibility during the after work time. Like any other concept, after work technological use has its positivity and negativity. However, the result depends on how and why the communication is done. I would call for total responsibility from the junior to the senior employees during the working hours and use after work mobile communications in case of emergency or an urgent issue. I would also recommend human resource management to undertake their role and protect the employees from over taking in the name of after hour technological use. I would also recommend organizations to build the virtue of responsibility and try as much as possible to use after hour technological use when due but not taking it as a norm. References Aditya, P. 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