These interactions may be considered at various levels of abstraction and from various perspectives. Three broad groups of interactions are adopted for use in this study, and are characterised as:
This background document is intended to lay out the more obvious aspects of the analysis, as a means of teasing out additional information, views and arguments. The primary economic, social and political considerations are discussed below, under the headings of people as employees, people as consumers, urban and regional development, people as communities, the environment, and international considerations.
Chief among the job classifications which appear to be at risk in the near future are:
Unless it is evident to the workforce that the job displacement occasioned by the implementation of IT is justified, necessary and inevitable, and that their interests are being addressed in a reasonable manner, it would be only natural for industrial relations to be negatively impacted, and resistance to change to be substantial.
Every change wrought by, or encouraged by, or made in conjunction with, the implementation of IT, inevitably involves change for the staff involved. There is a danger that 'information overload', and, in serious cases, 'employee burnout' may be induced by the new environment, because of its tendency to bombard employees with ever more data.
This implies that change management procedures need to be adopted by organisations participating in the process, including advance advice to, participation of, and consultation with employees. Induction and training schemes need to be planned and implemented. In addition, enterprise agreements need to incorporate provisions dealing with IT-sourced productivity, and care needs to be taken to ensure that job demarcation issues do not represent barriers to improved productivity.
One of the most significant impacts on work arising from IT generally in the coming decade will be the increased location-independence of tasks. This is already very much in evidence in the form of 'computing on the move' particularly by salesmen, meter-readers and executives, and 'telework', including 'telecommuting' and the 'electronic cottage', variously from serviced offices and community centres, and from the home. It is increasingly apparent that controls can be conceived and implemented which are satisfactory substitutes for that of visual surveillance by a supervisor, and a Commonwealth Award has recently been finalised. A related concept, sometimes referred to as 'hot-desking', is increasingly being used by professional services firms (in such areas as accountancy, audit, software and consulting). This involves staff working almost entirely from clients' premises and their own homes, with infrequent visits to their employer's (or agency's) offices requiring advance-booking of a desk-space.
Another possible impact arises in relation to increasing expectations of accessibility of products and services. In many different forms of shop and service location, extended opening hours are becoming increasingly common. This is particularly the case where significant inventories are not held locally, but rather prompt delivery is expected. This may result in some areas of government agencies which have hitherto functioned 9-5, five days per week, needing to operate shifts.
There is considerable scope for enhanced services to be offered by intermediaries, such as value-added network operators, and integrated transportation companies. From the viewpoint of government agencies as buyers, the effect may well be similar to outsourcing, in that a larger proportion of the jobs created may be outside buying organisations, and a larger proportion of the jobs destroyed may be inside them. Depending on the political perspective adopted, this may not be in itself a bad thing, but it does require human resource management planning, as well as adjustment of contracts such that propriety and controls are sustained in the new environment.
The level of education and expertise needed by applicants for the new kinds of jobs which are being and will be created, are substantially more demanding than used to be the case. IT familiarity will be crucial, but so also will adaptability, and the capacity to learn new skills quickly and often during their working lives.
International on-line directories and tendering processes will enable Australian companies to be aware of, compete for and win more overseas business, and companies which exploit these opportunities will need staff to support their increased sales volumes.
There is a considerable degree of expectation that the current upturn in the business cycle will not be accompanied by increases in full-time jobs to anything like the extent experienced in the past. The incidence of job-sharing, of part-time jobs and of shorter-hour 'full-time' jobs may be increasing, partly as a result of IT-enabled productivity increases.
IT-based service delivery may quickly become much more generally available, and then the norm, in relation to both information gathering and shopping. It is likely that it will not be limited to specially-designed terminals in public locations, but will also be possible using general-purpose workstations in the workplace, and workstations and entertainment centres in the home.
The productivity of counter-staff is enhanced if customers are only served after they have captured details of their request into an electronic form. To support this trend, substantially more consumer-convenient capture mechanisms than the QWERTY keyboard are becoming available, including voice-activation, programmable push-button screens and smart-card storage.
Employees acting on behalf of buying organisations will participate in systems of these kinds, especially when they are acquiring mainstream consumer products such as travel, petrol, miscellaneous items of stationery, taxis, and postage and courier services.
An additional area of concern to some people is an increasing tendency towards the identification of individuals in many transactions which have been hitherto anonymous. IT brings with it the possibility of relatively very cheap, and therefore much more broadly practised surveillance based on the monitoring of data rather than on the observation of overt behaviour. If institutions and governments exploit this scope in ways, or with an intensity, which are unacceptable to the populace, civil disobedience and worse can be anticipated, resulting in low data quality, additional repressive measures, and general distrust throughout the community.
All organisations, whether involved in manufacturing, selling, purchasing or service delivery would be likely to be affected by such a change. Under this scenario, traditional commuting would decrease, but the incidence of medium-distance travel may well increase, with many workers visiting their offices of the order of once per week or fortnight, from more distant homes.
Teleworking generally, but especially some of its variants such as 'hot-desking', may have the effect of reducing the number of professional services people who are in CBDs at any one time, resulting in a decrease in the demand for CBD office-space. Hence the economic recovery may not result in the filling of presently empty buildings. There would be a flow-on effect on retailers, both at department-store and boutique levels, who would lose clientele. This would result in lower prices for shop-front premises. The conversion of office to residential accommodation may increase.
The information society is expected by many to involve more people spending more time closer to home and in the home. There is some doubt as to whether a large proportion of the population is likely to adjust well to those patterns, especially where incomes and self-esteem are low due to unemployment or serious under-employment. On the other hand, some families are likely to find such patterns to their liking, particularly where both partners are pleased to sustain part-time work.
Productivity 'progress' will only be progress for society as a whole if everyone participates in the payback. IT support for the purchasing process is one element in the general pressure towards the transfer of a 'social wage' to all members of society, independently of whether and in what way they contribute their work.
These factors may be particularly problematical in sectors and segments in which concentration already exists, variously due to legislated monopoly, accidental monopoly and oligopoly, and protections, including tariffs.
Another concern is the likelihood of impediments slowing down the implementation of IT in purchasing. In some areas, the lack of a catalyst has resulted in little or no progress in applying, for example, EDI, despite wide agreement that the technology is both beneficial and inevitable. A major reason for this problem is that there are often inadequate returns to those organisations which must make the investment.
Other delays may result from inadequacies in the services available. For example, many companies and agencies are currently concerned about the poor quality of inter-connectivity and inter-operability provided by the various value-added network services providers. In addition, adaptation of application software (both packages and in-house applications) to interface with communication services is often very slow. Underlying these problems are commonly lack of awareness among executives, of appreciation among managers, and of expertise among professionals.
In addition, legal factors may constrain development. The law of evidence represents a barrier to proving transactions. Security is far from sufficient in many of the services offered to date, especially in relation to authentication of the origin of messages. There will also need to be new balances struck, and recognised by tribunals and courts, relating to fiscal propriety.
As government procurement becomes increasingly manageable, it is likely to become more frequently used as an explicit weapon in the implementation of government policies generally. One important area is likely to be the environmental impact of goods and services, with preference given to 'green', environmentally-friendly products, with reference to re-cycling, energy efficiency, scarce-resource efficiency, low-waste technology and 'good corporate citizen' behaviour. Other factors which may attract government business may include such government policies as occupational health and safety, job-generation, and compliance with equal employment and affirmative action.
Balanced against the international perspective are concerns about local content, and buying Australian-made where the quality and price are competitive.
In addition, initiatives have been launched in several leading countries and in international fora which will give considerable impetus to the 'informaticisation' of leading nations in our reference group. Among these are the U.S.A.'s National Information Infrastructure, various Directives within the European Community, and national community systems in Asian countries, especially the 'IT 2000' programme in Singapore, but also in Taiwan, Korea and Thailand.
If, as expected, these initiatives bear fruit, it will be essential for Australia to match progress in such countries in order to remain competitive with them, and to be able to participate in the emerging information world order.
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Last Amended: 14 October 1995
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