Anytime, Anywhere: The Workplace Reality
by Kelly Garrett and Jim Danziger

Background

In the last issue of the CRITO newsletter, Alladi Venkatesh provided a comprehensive overview of computer use in the home, identifying and characterizing several eras of adoption and directing our attention to future possibilities. The evolution of computers in the workplace can also be divided into several eras.

Although personal computers are the most familiar form of workplace computerization today, mainframes and mini-computers, which date back to the early 1960s, set the stage for widespread computer utilization in the modern work environment. In this initial era of centralized office computing, “dumb” computer terminals*, which were reserved for specially trained employees, served as the interface to large centralized computers that stored and processed organizational data. For example, the IBM-developed SABRE airline reservation system, which is still in use today, was first used by American Airlines in 1964, and real-time reservation systems were used by all major airlines by the 1970s. Many other organizations adopted mainframe-based computer systems for core “back-office” applications in such areas as finance and record-keeping. Use of these centralized computer systems was less pervasive in the workplace than the PCs that followed, but this era played an important role in establishing the value of the computers for work, and helped create the market for hardware and software.

The personal computing era emerged in the 1980s, transforming computers from a tool reserved for specialized applications into a widely utilized business machine. This era is more familiar to most of us than the one that preceded it, in part because the low-cost microprocessor-based machines that launched the revolution continue to dominate the office landscape today. The introduction of PCs into the workplace was accompanied by what was at the time considered a radical notion that ICTs (information and communications technologies) belong in the hands of the workers who use them. Dramatic declines in the cost and size of the technology and even more remarkable increases in the speed and capabilities of these machines have helped to make this idea a reality. Heralded by many as a “revolution” in work, these new technologies raised important workplace issues related to such topics as productivity, security, surveillance, power relations, job satisfaction, and more.

Though PCs still dominate, most agree that the wide-scale adoption of the Internet marked the beginning of the era of Internet-enabled PCs in work. The ability to connect to a global network of computers and information, sharing data and applications with unprecedented ease and speed, dramatically changed how many people work.

Today it appears that we are on the verge of a fourth era: the era of ubiquitous computing or “UbiComp” as it is sometimes known. As networks have gone wireless, and as networked devices have become small, cheap and multifunctional – think Blackberry – workers are becoming increasingly reliant on seamless network mobility. Research on UbiComp technologies is advancing rapidly and many innovative new applications are anticipated. For example, workers will increasingly have anytime, anyplace access to their organization’s databases, as well as the capability to analyze those data and to communicate with managers and subordinates, coworkers and clients without the constraints of time or location.

Aspects of each era carry on into the next. Just as the uses of the PC in the workplace were modified by the Internet, UbiComp will also result in new adaptations of workplace technology. As we look to the future, we see new opportunities and familiar challenges. How will these ICTs be integrated into existing work routines? What will the new practices mean for workplace productivity and worker satisfaction? Will organizational structures and control be altered? How will workers manage the balance between home and office in an anytime/anyplace work world? These are a few of the intriguing questions raised by the evolving computing environment.

Many settings have changed dramatically in the face of rapidly evolving ICTs. In ongoing research at CRITO, we strive to identify, document and explain how ICTs might support and even transform work, at every level from the individual to the global system. One of CRITO’s ongoing research programs is Project POINT (People, Organizations, and INformation Technologies). POINT has collected several waves of survey data, two of which focus on the experiences of computer-using workers in the United States. In the summer of 2006, we surveyed 1,024 U.S. workers who work for an organization full time and who regularly use a computer in that work (that is, for at least 5 hours per week in work). The results show that new ICTs are continuing to make inroads into the work world, and that use of these technologies is accompanied by distinctive new routines. Below, we offer some of the notable characteristics of the work environments penetrated by ICTs.

Characteristics

Where work is done
Our 2006 data represent a single moment in the evolution of workplace technology, limiting our ability to specify how computers are changing work routines. Nevertheless, the contemporary prevalence of work in places other than the office and the important role that computers play in such work suggest that ICTs are influencing work location patterns. From home-based telecommuters to computer-dependent road warriors, computers enable many employees to engage in various forms of out-of-the-office work.

Figure 1. Location of Work of Organizationally-Employed

Although nearly two-thirds (62%) of organizationally-employed computer-using workers do all their work in a central office, another quarter (24%) report that they spent at least some of their time working at home during a typical week. In addition, 20% report that they typically do at least some of their weekly work “in the field,” in sites ranging from a client’s location, to an airport to the local Starbucks (Figure 1).

How workers use computers
Computer-using workers tend to rely on a variety of productivity applications. Presented with a list of ten different types of applications, half the workers (50%) use at least three applications, and about 1 in 5 (19%) use six or more applications. Word processing and spreadsheets are by far the most common, used by about three-quarters of the respondents (83% and 72% respectively), but every application in our list has sizeable use, with 10-20% engaging in even the most technical uses (e.g., CAD) (see Figure 2).

Figure 2. Percent of employees using software, by type

Computers are also an essential element of the communication network for many workers (see Figure 3). It is no surprise that email is a pervasive part of work -- nearly nine in ten (86%) of the workers surveyed report using email (a higher proportion than any of the applications assessed in Figure 2). But today email is joined by other types of computer-based communication technologies. Instant messaging, which first entered the scene in the late 1990s, is now used by nearly one-third (30%) of all computer-using workers. Perhaps more surprising is the fact that voice-over-IP (VOIP) and Internet-based video conferencing technologies, such as Skype and iChat, already have a significant foothold in the office: 9% of computer-using workers employ these technologies to communicate with coworkers or clients.

Figure 3. Percent of employees using computers to communicate, by technology and work location

These communication capabilities of ICTs are one factor that has enabled more computer-supported work outside the office. Of those who work at home, almost four in five (78%) use email for work, one in five (22%) uses IM, and one in twenty (6%) uses VOIP. Furthermore, almost all of them (97%) have Internet access at home, and about three in four (73%) say that they can remotely access work data and/or applications from home. Use of these ICTs is not quite as prevalent in the field, but they are still important. Half (50%) of those working in the field use e-mail, one in seven (14%) uses IM, and one in twenty (6%) uses VOIP. It is perhaps noteworthy that among those who have Internet access in the field, usage levels of IM and VOIP approach the levels found in the office.

Conclusion

ICTs are now used for a wide range of work-related tasks. While mainstream office applications, such as word processing and spreadsheets, are by far the most commonly used tools, a significant minority of workers use other software applications and most use a variety of applications. New communication technologies are also becoming a more integral part of the U.S. workplace. Email has become a near-universal fixture of the contemporary office, and it is increasingly joined by other technologies, such as instant messaging, voice-over-IP, and Internet-based video conferencing. In addition, more and more workers are employing wireless, networked technologies, facilitating anytime, anyplace engagement with work. These new modes of communication afford a variety of new capabilities, apparently altering the ways in which employees communicate and even the locations at which most work is done.

How these work patterns will evolve remains to be seen, but these results demonstrate that the workplace is continuing to change in response to the introduction of and adaptations to information and communication technologies. Many workers depend on these ICTs to complete work tasks and to interact with clients and colleagues. Like the earlier eras of computers in the workplace, the latest technologies are influencing work and workers, raising important questions. On POINT, we are exploring such questions as worker productivity, job satisfaction, worker autonomy and control, and the home-work balance.

* The name reflected the fact that these machines had no processing power and could not store data or programs.