Certification Magazine - January 2008 - (Page 6)

DATA STREAM News & Notes for Certiﬁed Professionals A new study from Robert Half Technology has found that telecommuting is gaining in prevalence and popularity among IT professionals. (See also our feature on telecommuting as a systems and networks engineer on page 26.) Forty-four percent of chief information officers surveyed reported that their companies’ IT workforce is telecommuting at a rate that is the same or higher than five years ago. Only 3 percent said IT staff work remotely less frequently today than five years ago. Thirty-four percent of CIOs cited improved retention and morale through enhanced work-life balance as the greatest benefit of allowing telecommuting. Increased productivity due to reduced commute time was cited by 28 percent of respondents. According to Robert Half Vice President John Estes, movement toward telecommuting has been made possible by security improvements. “The thought for so long was that telecommuting is a security risk,” said Estes, who added that security has made great gains in terms of firewall technology and intrusion detection. “Of course, on the other side, the bad guys have gotten a lot more sophisticated in terms of how to enter these databases and firewalls, but I think, overall, people feel much more confident about how to keep out these predators and hackers. More people are starting to find that the benefits in terms of attracting, retaining and rewarding employees far outweigh any type of security risk to the company.” There are other risks in allowing employees to telecommute, and, according to the report, CIOs realize this. Forty-four percent of CIOs surveyed felt that quality of work suffers due to diminished in-person contact with colleagues. Thirty percent of CIOs surveyed felt that telecommuting employees are not as productive because they have less oversight. Estes commented on how companies can best manage these risks. “You’ve got to really look at the individual,” he said. “Some people are definite self-starters and some have to have daily supervision.” Thirty-four percent of CIOs cited improved retention and morale through enhanced work-life balance as the greatest benefit of allowing telecommuting. Increased productivity due to reduced commute time was cited by 28 percent of respondents. ing any buttons and listen as the system queries you again and again. Finally, seeming confused, it forwards you to an operator. According to a recently released report from technology research firm Datamonitor, this scenario might change soon. The organization’s “2007 Trends to Watch: Contact Center Outsourcing and Services” report concluded that technology shifts will be an area of focus for contact center vendors, as end users rapidly adopt new and sophisticated contact channels. A contact center can be defined as a facility that houses employees dedicated to using the telephone to help people with their problems or to make telephone calls to try to solicit business, said Peter Ryan, Datamonitor senior analyst for contact center outsourcing and offshoring. Telemarketing accounts for a minority of the activity here — most of the traffic is inbound: people calling for tech support or to register complaints, to ask questions, to process a purchase, etc. “We’re saying there’s going to be growth in self-service technology,” Ryan said. “So, if you’ve called up an airline to find out when your flight’s going to be tak- Toward Contact Center Automation We’ve all been there. You call a company (perhaps your credit card company or the power, cable or gas company) and encounter an automated system instead of a live operator. The last time you tried to cooperate with this system, you were sucked into an impenetrable labyrinth of menu options, and your problem was not resolved. So this time, you simply refrain from push- 6 CERTIFICATION MAGAZINE January 2008

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Certification Magazine - January 2008

Certification - January 2008 Editor's Letter Contents Data Stream Tech Careers Academic Connection Dear Techie Virtual Village Making the IT Leap: How to Move Into the Industry Inside Certification Phoning It In: Telecommuting Systems and Networks Engineer Interface Band of Brothers: Why You Should Join an IT Association Ad Index Endtag

Certification Magazine - January 2008

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