How has technology changed the way we work? GEN S102F Digital Lifestyle: cradle to grave with bits and bytes Lectures on Work and Business Domain (Part 1) By Dr Steven Choy

Seminar’s Theme  Information Technology has changed  the way we work (online working)  the way we earn money (virtual workers)  the way companies hire workers (remote hiring) Image source:

Agenda 1. Overview 2. Examples 3. Benefits 4. Issues 5. Impact 6. Conclusion

1. Overview  How do we earn money?  The trend in the labor market  What is online work?  What is virtual assistants?  What is remote hiring?

How do we earn money?  Employee  earn money by holding a job and working for a company  Self-Employed / Freelancer  earn money working for yourself Business Owner own a business that generates money employ people work for you Investor earn money from your investments (money that generates more money) Source: the book: Rich Dad, Poor Dad

The trend in the market  Popularity of freelancing is rising.  Small business is growing at an astounding rate.  Full-time employment is a diminished market. Reference: By 2020, more than 40% of the American workforce will be freelancers, contractors and temp workers, according to a study conducted by software company Intuit.

To be an Employee  You need to get hired.  You need to find a employer who  trust your talent/ability,  assign you a post and give you works  pay you money in return  You are required to  go to a work place (office) in working hours  be assessed your productivity (by your superiors)

As a Business Owner (Employer)  You need to acquire talent (employ value workers)  Talent is important to a business' success,  but, sometimes, it is painful to access  Why is traditional hiring difficult?  expense/cost  hard to find talent locally  time it takes  not flexible

What is an online workplace?  a virtual office where  workers have all the tools and data they need to perform their work duties.  They no longer need to report to their offices in order to do their jobs.  Constant communication is often important to ensure the continued productivity of a business. Reference: shutterstock images

Approaches to online workplace  Telecommuting (eg. work at home)  allows employees to make use of communication technologies like the Internet and to work in another location.  A hot desk set-up  employees are given a desk where they can perform their duties and access the company and computer network files.  Virtual team set-up.  A group of employees work closely together and constantly interact with each other although they may be located in various parts of the globe.

Telecommuting

Hot desking

Virtual team

A new urban space “The individualization of working arrangements, the multi-location of the activity, and the ability to network all these activities around the individual worker, usher in a new urban space, the space of endless mobility, a space made of flows of information and communication, ultimately managed with the Internet.” Castells 2003, p.234

 In 2004 JetBlue started a revolution, allowing 700 customer service reps to work from home with no central office Reservations Reservations crewmembers provide exceptional customer service to customers calling JETBLUE. They are friendly, knowledgeable, articulate, problem-solvers, who can handle a wide range of situations and personalities. After initial training, Reservationists are allowed to work from home. Telecommuting example

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What is a virtual assistant?  a personal who lends assistance from their own location without travelling to your office  Tasks include:  data entry  research  document production/editing/proofreading  customer service  e-commerce  appointment setting  travel arrangements  various time consuming tasks  and so much more.

Virtual Assistant Requirements If you have an , You're hired! How To Be A Virtual Assistant (25 min video)

Online/remote hiring  Hire remote workers for your business.  Remote hiring is a new concept which is revolutionizing the way businesses have been running.  Business owners are paying offshore individuals or companies to execute their work.

 Remote Hiring is a service that leverages, harnesses, and consolidates several advancements of Internet technology to provide you with low-cost skilled human resources from around the globe, on a short-term or long-term basis without any of the headaches or long- term commitments otherwise associated with starting a new business unit. Reference:

2. Examples  Examples of talent markets (marketplace for online work)  Upwork (formerly Odesk)  Elance.com (joined Upwork in August 2015)  Freelancer.com  Vworker.com  Gru.com  People who work as remote workers  Businesses who employ virtual assistants

Virtual assistants employment is everywhere.

More examples  Why Outsource? (3 min video)   Philippines Virtual Assistant (1 min video)   What and How of Virtual Employee Services (1 min video) 

oDesk ( Introduction video (2:37min)

How do I find a contractor? Get the job done — on demand Find the help you need to take care of business. Dip into our impressive pool of talented professionals to tackle virtually any project on your timeline and terms.  Step 1: Post a job  Connect with qualified contractors.  Post your job description to thousands of potential hires. You’ll get applications from skilled candidates—often within minutes.  Step 2: Make a hire  Hire the right person for the project.  Review work histories, past client feedback, test scores, and portfolios to narrow the field. Then set up a virtual interview to chat with and choose the best candidate.

 Step 3: Track progress  Watch the work as it happens.  Tracking your project is easy. Monitor activity, send messages, and review work-in-progress snapshots with our smart management tools.  Step 4: Pay with ease  Pay without paperwork.  oDesk handles all financial transactions, sending secure payments to contractors across the globe. Just use our Work Diary to review hours, and we’ll take care of the rest!

ODesk’s software takes screenshots of an employee’s computer at random intervals.

How do I find a job? Great careers begin here. You have the skills, we have the jobs. With almost twice the contractor earnings of our largest competitor, oDesk is a smart, secure place to get to work!  Step 1: Post profile  Show the world how great you are.  Share your skills, experience, portfolio, and education to compete for jobs and grow your clientele.  Step 2: Find a job  Pick and choose your projects.  With 75 job categories ranging from app development to blogging and everything in between, we have a project that's right for you. Browse our jobs and apply to the ones that suit your skills.

 Step 3: Get paid  An hour worked is an hour paid.  That’s the oDesk Guarantee. Your time is tracked automatically and paid weekly without invoicing, so you can spend more time working, less time billing.  Step 4: Earn More  Be an oDesk success.  Work hard, get great feedback, increase your rate, and grow your financial success just like thousands of professional contractors who make a full-time living on oDesk today.

DEMO An inside look at Upwork service

Elance (

Elance  How Elance sells its services? “As the world's leading platform for online employment, Elance helps businesses hire and manage in the cloud. For businesses looking to staff-up a team on an hourly or project basis, Elance offers instant access to qualified professionals who work online and provides the tools to hire, view work as it progresses and pay for results. “

Elance  For businesses “ If you are looking to jump-start a project, broaden your reach or just simply get things done, you will find that Elance is faster and more cost- effective than job boards, staffing firms and traditional outsourcing. You name it and Elancers will deliver results, often with a flourish: from writing code, crafting a marketing plan, designing your website, managing your day-to-day schedule and a thousand other projects.”

Elance  For contractors “ If you have skills and talent and are seeking independent work online, Elance offers access to qualified clients, a virtual workplace and guaranteed pay for great work. To help make delivering great results easier for you, Elance offers a suite of tools to help make your work life as efficient as possible.” Video: How to Use Elance (1:50min):

3. Benefits  To businesses:  Expand the labor market  Online workplaces enable businesses to choose the best talent instead of settling for what is available locally.  Online hiring is much faster.  Hiring on-demand makes business more competitive.  Online work grows businesses faster.  Accelerate business through a cost-efficient virtual workforce  More flexible staffing

 Which types of workers do you think are most difficult to find in your local area? Source:

Cost Comparison Full-time Employee versus Virtual Assistant cost-comparison/

Source:

Inside the Mind of a Freelancer [INFOGRAPHIC]

4. Issues and limitations  Not all jobs can be outsourced to remote workers  Employee relationship with company  Loyalty, flexibility, job security  Disadvantages of virtual workplace  Feeling of isolation  Cultural issues  Lack of trust  Disadvantages of virtual teams  Lack of physical interaction—with its associated verbal and nonverbal cues—and the synergies that often accompany face-to-face communication  Taxation and inland revenue may be difficult to track

5. Impact  Hiring workers from anywhere will be a trend.  Hiring will be more dependent on having the right skills than on location.  More and more businesses will have blended teams.  Competition for jobs is no longer limited to where you live.  To stay empolyed in the workplace of the future, you need to stand out.

6. Conclusions  The future of work is  transparent  There are many tools to assess your productivity and value.  on demand  Virutal team can be formed quickly.  flat  Location will not matter.  competitive  To stay employed, you need to stand out.

Extra: Task Rabbit  Sharing economy makes it pay to work on your own  pay-to-work-on-your-own.html pay-to-work-on-your-own.html  How TaskRabbit Works   The Japan version of TaskRabbit is called  Anytimes (

Extra: the sharing economy  The rise of the sharing economy  everything-hire-rise-sharing-economy everything-hire-rise-sharing-economy

What’s mine is yours, for a fee

Sharing Economy Examples

Airbnb

What's your view of UBER, Airbnb, and other parts of Sharing Economy?