Employment and business impact

Homeworking and its benefits

The global pandemic resulted in workers being told to stay at home – which is clearly detrimental to a business. In many areas however, it was possible for workers to continue their jobs from home. There are advantages to both the business and the worker:

• Business does not need to provide as many facilities for working on-site – for example, no need to provide a separate desk for every employee, as most could work from home
• Gained time for employees due to no longer commuting to a place of work
• Reduction in cost of servicing for the employer: heating, electricity, network connectivity are provided by the employee
• Flexibility in working arrangements – this is often cited as a benefit when competing to attract the best talent to a job

There are, of course, also down sides:

• Lack of interaction with other people (see impact of computing)
• Difficulty separating work and home life
• Additional costs for employer in providing equipment for employees to take home
• More difficult to keep track of employees’ productivity
• Technical interruptions – for example, internet connectivity issues – can not be fixed by the usual technicians, as there are more points of failure

Reduction in unskilled/low-paid jobs

As computing systems automate more processes, the number of unskilled jobs reduces. Computer systems are ideally suited to replacing tedious, repetitive tasks which do not require a great deal of processing. For this reason, computing disproportionately replaces lower-paid and lower-skilled jobs.

Creation of new markets and opportunities

Discussed in Changing markets and new opportunities.