Job Selection for Teleworking

Inhaltsangabe:Abstract:For several years, business process management (BPM) has been more than just a catchword. Smooth and efficient processes are important for organizations in order to be able to survive or, even more difficult, to operate successfully in a constantly changing environment of fierce competition. Ort account of that, processes must be understood and formally described. The modelling of processes is a major task in BPM. Also in the course of (total) quality management, often in connection with certification, as well as for the selection and installation of standard software products and the development of individual applications, process models are needed.The search for new forms of working, and especially the rapid development of telecommunication technologies, has led to a revival of the discussion about teleworking which has already been started approximately 20 years ago. In comparison to BPM, the development of teleworking is less advanced. For several reasons, among them the prospect of new jobs in less developed regions, teleworking is promoted by governments as well as by international and supranational organizations. Hence, it can be assumed that this form of working will become more and more popular.For responsible managers in their different businesses this means that they will more frequently be confronted with the task of integrating teleworking in existing processes.If a company decides to make teleworking possible for some of its employees, several aspects haue to be considered.Technology: The teleworker's place of work has to be equipped with technical devices as well as the company might need additional equipment. Infrastructure is necessary for communication between teleworker and company.Organization: Jobs that are appropriate for teleworking have to be identified. In this context the current processes should be critically regarded, and if necessary adapted.Legislation: The form of the teleworker's employment contract, employer's liability for accidents, regulations regarding working hours are some of the questions that have to be tackled.Personality: Particularly important are personal characteristics of the people concerned. Teleworkers must be self-disciplined and haue a strong sense of responsibility. Their superiors must be able to adopt an objective-oriented management style, based an trust instead of continuous supervision.Technology and legislation are important issues, yet they do not seem to constitute serious problems. The selection of teleworkers according to personal characteristics requires a good deal of sure instinct whereas the organizational issue should be the most complex and time-consuming task of all.When teleworking is introduced, several organizational problems occur. A very important step, probably the most important one, is the selection of jobs that are appropriate for teleworking.The question is if and how this task of job selection can be carried out better with the help of process models.Several criteria indicate whether a job is appropriate for teleworking. They concem characteristics such as independence, complexity and kind of interactions, nature of the tasks, and others. If these criteria can be operationalised so that they can be evaluated using information given in the process models, it would become possible to formalize and standardize the job of task selection.As introduced above, an especially critical step within the introduction process of teleworking that could possibly be supported by process models is the identification of suitable jobs.This will be the main aspect to study. The questions that shall be answered are:- Is it possible to identify jobs that are suitable for teleworking based an a business process model?- Is there a method that can be applied to this selection in order to standardize it?- How could...