Question.726 - Write a short paper addressing telecommuting as a work arrangement. Begin by thoroughly reading the assigned chapters, including the case study “Telecommuting at MedEx” at the end of Chapter 12 of your textbook. Then write a short paper that addresses the following: How would offering telecommuting as an option benefit MedEx and its employees? List and explain the advantages, disadvantages, and challenges in offering telecommuting. Would you recommend telecommuting for MedEx? Why or why not?
Answer Below:
Telecommuting at MedEx Assignment of OL-620 Latissa Burgos Southern New Hemisphere University OL-620 Total Rewards Professor Bobby Burcham January 4th, 2023 Telecommuting at MedEx Assignment of OL-620 In order to understand how Telecommuting could help MedEx, it is necessary to know the operational cues of the process in terms of how it could alter existing performance. Telecommuting is the process of providing employees the opportunity to work from a remote location. However, there is a difference when considering remote work and telecommuting; remote work has a centralized process of operations, as certain companies provide a centralized module for employees to operate and work from a remote location that enables data sharing with the team members. While on the other side, telecommuting tends to operate without a centralized module; rather, they establish a network through the use of the internet. Where employees are connected through a network, and it addresses the smaller team. But the possibility of implementing Telecommuting for MedEx tends to serve bleak results. Since there is an underlying dissatisfaction about the salary, compensating it with a benefit could give employees more scope to evaluate how competitors are operating, and it could lead to a higher possibility of burnout (Heidt et al., 2022). To evaluate the benefits of implementing telecommuting, there is a higher number of married employees working in the firm and some feedback reporting overtime not being paid and not being able to spend ample amount of time with their kids. There are claims that employees reach home late and miss spending time with their kids because they're late and the kids go to bed early; the cycle is repeated with early morning work in such instances, the employees could benefit in terms of having a balance between work and life balance. It could serve as a beneficial perk for the company in terms of employee welfare. In the medical sector, the possibility of implementing telecommuting could hamper the work process depending on the structure of the work (Noonam & Glass, 2012). Such as it could either be beneficial or hamper it; in a scenario when scientists have to work on the same data, the credibility of the sharing through open-source internet is unsafe, while also the equipment used for clinical trials cannot be provided remote access, in such scenarios it is difficult to mitigate the flow of work and sustain the privacy of the data being used for scientific research purpose. On the other with the possibility of having a proper adaptive structure where employees need to inform in prior such that the work that requires in-office presence can be shared amongst other group members, and also it can provide work from home to those that have taken extra work. The employees cannot fully express their potential in terms of work or also exhibit their true character in terms of being a team player or pitching in for additional work, while those in the office could steal away the opportunity only because they are present physically. A loss of opportunity could impact one's career drastically (Pinsonneault & Boisvert, 2001). In scenarios, there is an urgent need for a research analyst or scientist to work on a particular, and they are working from home, it pushes the task to wait on the particular employee. The firm cannot assure the same level of productivity as in-person office work because it draws in ethical implications where the company implies that by giving leisure working space through telecommuting, they cannot demand the employee to perform the same level of the task they could in the office and also expect the same level of working discipline. Another challenge could be the employees could get accustomed to the benefit provided by the firm, where altering work pressure could take time for the employees to adapt to. If the culture of the work is to cohesively engage as one team, telecommuting could hamper teamwork. However, establishing a proper structure of operation in order to have authority and balance overwork and employees could help MedEx. Such as, they can provide one work-from-home every week and establish a centralized module to mitigate their workflow and create a holistic approach in terms of data sharing if there is a need to work as a team. The centralized module needs to ensure that it provides higher cyber security from internet threats, such that data breach does not occur and the firm can monitor the flow of data. They should also pre-set guidelines, where the employees can only take work from home or use telecommuting option on the mid-week days from Tuesdays and Thursdays, since the beginning of the week and end of the week could have a higher flow of work and meetings can be held with prior information on who is telecommuting, in addition to other guidelines such as more than two employees from the same team depending on the work and capacity of the team shall not take work from home. If properly drafted, it could serve as a benefit offered by the firm. References Heidt, L., Gauger, F., & Pfn?r, A. (2022). Work from Home Success: Agile work characteristics and the Mediating Effect of supportive HRM. Review of Managerial Science, 1-26. Noonan, M. C., & Glass, J. L. (2012). The hard truth about telecommuting. Monthly Lab. Rev., 135, 38. Pinsonneault, A., & Boisvert, M. (2001). The impacts of telecommuting on organizations and individuals: A review of the literature. Telecommuting and virtual offices: Issues and opportunities, 163-185.More Articles From Strategic Management
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