Addressing the ‘Always On’ Culture and Socrates’ Warning

Addressing the ‘Always On’ Culture and Socrates’ Warning

Summarize a problem at your workplace that is affected by modern technology, including the main stakeholders of the problem (those that are most affected by the problem) and review why the problem needs to be solved.

The notion of Flexi-time has been lauded as one of the major advantages of technology. With information being readily accessible and communication being made ever so easy, it has made it possible for people to work anywhere and at any time. The COVID-19 pandemic opened up the opportunity for people to work from home for companies that never thought it was possible to do so. In my workplace, the employees are expected to be ‘always on.’ This means that an employee should be easily reachable anytime and in any place to attend to work-related issues. Doing so ensures that any issues are attended to promptly and reduces the chances of backlogs or miscommunication. Zoom meetings obliterate the distance between colleagues who want to discuss matters related to work. While this is a good thing, especially because it gives employees the freedom to work from wherever they want, it also has its disadvantages.

In a normal working schedule, a person works for a specified number of hours in a day, and most get the weekend off to rest and attend to personal matters. However, the ‘always on’ concept violates these freedoms (Heejung, 2017). A person who is at home resting over the weekend can be interrupted by an email that requires an urgent response. An employee may just be getting ready to retire for the evening and have some family time, but they will be interrupted by a video call from a colleague requesting that they check on or discuss a work issue. All this is done without getting monetary compensation for overtime work. An employee spends hours at work and more hours at home working.

This needs to be resolved because it amounts to overworking employees with no compensation. It denies the employees the opportunity to rest and rejuvenate, which can cause employee burnout. Additionally, when employees are denied their free time off office hours, they can become resentful and consequently un-productive or under-productive. It can also result in insubordination at the workplace and a high rate of employee turnover as they seek greener pastures.

With the ideas put forward by Bluemink (2017), in 1 page, what would you tell your organization about Socrates’ warning so that you could help guide a discussion about the ethical considerations you see within the workplace around the technological problem/concern

In the article, the author points out that ‘the more we use the web, the more our brains get used to being distracted – that is, to processing information extremely quickly and efficiently without sustained attention.’ Employees at my workplace are bombarded by technology at work, and they are not given a considerable break when they get home. Working while one is supposed to rest deprives the brain of the chance to reflect on other matters. It also deprives them of the time to rest their minds. An employee who is working at home when they should be resting or reading a book only goes on to feed the brain with more information with very little attention paid to other things, including family issues.

In initiating a discussion, I would first get the opinion of my colleagues regarding the constant work interruptions they get while at home. These views would be collected and recorded in a formal document and forwarded to the management. Management will be expected to hold a meeting to address the concerns raised. As the initiator of this conversation, I will forward to the management the research facts that show a link between employee overwork and reduced productivity, employee dissatisfaction, high employee turnover rates, and insubordination (Balamurugan & Pasupathi, 2018; Bora, 2015; Oosthuizen, Coetzee, & Munro, 2016). The arguments that Bluemink (2017) posits will be used as grounds for requesting policy implementation that would regulate when and under what circumstances an employee’s free time will be interrupted by work as well as the compensation for such interruptions.

References

Balamurugan, G., & Pasupathi, P. (2018). A study on effect of work-life balance on productivity. International Journal for Emerging Research and Development, 1(7), 1-4.

Bluemink, M. (2017). Socrates, memory & the internet. Retrieved October 1, 2019, from https://philosophynow.org/issues/122/Socrates_Memory_and_The_Internet

Bora, B. (2015). Quality of work life-an overview. Management Today, 5(4), 184-191.

Heejung, C. (2017). Flexible working is making us work longer. Retrieved from https://qz.com/765908/flexible-working-is-making-us-work-longer/

Oosthuizen, R. M., Coetzee, M., & Munro, Z. (2016). Work-life balance, job satisfaction and turnover intention amongst information technology employees. Southern African Business Review, 20(1), 446-467.

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Assignment Overview
For your first applied assignment, consider the Bluemink (2017) article and think about your past or present workplace. The goal of this assignment is to review a problem that exists within the workplace and to use both the sourced material and your personal experience to relate to Socrates’ warning about technology.

References

Bluemink, M. (2017). Socrates, memory & the internet. Retrieved October 1, 2019, from https://philosophynow.org/issues/122/Socrates_Memory_and_The_Internet

SLP Assignment
Write a two- to three-page paper describing the following from the sources within the reference section:

Do not summarize the article by Bluemink (2017). This was already done for your case assignment.

In 1 to 2 pages, summarize a problem at your workplace that is affected by modern technology, including the main stakeholders of the problem (those that are most affected by the problem), and review why the problem needs to be solved.

With the ideas put forward by Bluemink (2017), in 1 page, what would you tell your organization about Socrates’ warning so that you could help guide a discussion about the ethical considerations you see within the workplace around the technological problem/concern?

Strategy for completing the assignment:

Read through the entire article by Bluemink (2017). For those who prefer to listen to the article, consider downloading @Voice on your Android phone, creating a PDF of the article, downloading it to your phone, and listening to the article through @Voice. This is a free app. If you have an iPhone, the App Store has a good Voice Aloud Reader that will read websites, so you do not need to convert the text into a PDF.

Use in-text citations for any additional sources you use, but remember, the source below is the key source we are asking you to use for this assignment. You can copy and paste the correct APA formatting from below and input this source directly into your reference section.

References

Bluemink, M. (2017). Socrates, memory & the internet. Retrieved October 1, 2019, from https://philosophynow.org/issues/122/Socrates_Memory_and_The_Internet