The New Corporate Workspace

In the article "Corporate Virtual Workspace" Steve Pruitt and Tom Barrett talk about the workspace that is being used in corporations. This new workspace is all virtual and each employee accesses this from their home. When reading the article, a few questions arose. They talk about how anyone around the world can work for a corporation because you do not actually need to be there to interact and work. This is interesting because people from totally different countries will be working and interacting on a daily basis. I wonder how these people will effectively work together because their customs and cultures will be different. What is customary or normal in one country may not be in another. The impact may not be as severe as actually being in that country because most of the nonverbal cues are eliminated, but you would still need to be aware of all the different customs so you did not offend anyone. Also, since all of these employees are in different places how would you set up their schedules? Would this be a place that would be open at all hours and you can come and go as you please? This may cause some problems because you may need everyone to meet at the same time but the time proposed could be in the middle of the night or interfere with someone’s religious obligations. It would be hard to impose certain operation hours if your employees are located in different time zones. I also want to raise the question what will happen to those who do not have access to technology. I would image that by the time most corporate workplaces looked like this most everyone would have access to technology but there still may be those select few that do not have the same accessibility. This would be undoubtedly limiting opportunities to only select populations. One advantage that is apparent is that this is a much greener way of living. Instead of people traveling for conferences or meetings we can now eliminate the waste and energy used and do this all online.