ICT and work (benefits)

The use of technology has greatly changed the way people work. There are a number of reasons for this.

Firstly the use of word processors have greatly improved the speed at which some-one can put something into text. The work could be a report on something or a list of products to name a couple of examples. Being able to produce a piece of work quicker means that the efficiency of the company will improve as well as how much work an individual can get done. Most word processors also have tools which highlight spelling and grammatical mistakes and provide options on how to fix them. This reduces the amount of time needed to proof read the work. All word processors enable people to change a part in a document without having to start again or change the whole thing. This is useful as it means people can quickly correct mistakes or modify a part of the document, possible due to a slight change in what is required. Word processors also have a function which lets people find any word in a document and replace it with another word. This is useful if a lot of pieces have to be produced that are all slightly different, i.e. letters.

Another way in which technology affects the way people work is the use of spreadsheet programs. Spreadsheets enable people to make very large tables to store information in. The information is usually numerical. Spreadsheets are very useful as they provide multiple calculations to use on the data. These calculations include adding, subtracting, multiplying, dividing and finding the average of large amounts of data. This is very useful as it is far more accurate than working out by hand. Also it is possible to select groups of data for these calculations meaning it is quicker than typing it all into a calculator. Spreadsheets also make it easy to group data together so it is easier to see. Speadsheets are often used to show amounts of stock in a shop and when to order more. Similarly speadsheets are also used in manufacturing processes as they can be used to keep track of the amount of raw materials being delivered and the amount of products being shipped out. Spreadsheets are very useful because they can put the data into graphs allowing people to see trends in the data.

The improvements technology has made to communications have also affected the way people work. The virtually instantaneous communications mean that it is a lot easier for a worker to send a message to another worker and get a reply. These messages can include; asking some-one to do a job, asking how to do part of a job or sending a completed bit of work to be reviewed. Also fast communications mean that it is easier to contact parts of a company in other parts of the world. This is especially useful for journalists because they can find a story, type it and send it to the company quickly. The company will normally receive the story soon after it is sent even if the journalist is on the other side of the planet. A lot of companies now give important employees blackberries. A blackberry is a mobile communications system. It is different from a mobile phone because it can receive emails as well as calls and texts. These are given to employees so the company can immediately contact them if something occurs that needs to be sorted out. This means that a problem could be solved the evening it occurs, instead of having to wait for the person to come to work next morning.

Another aspect of how technoly has changed working styles can be seen in shops. Whenever a product is taken to a till a machine reads the bar code on the product. A barcode is a set of vertical lines of varying degrees of thickness. Every product in a shop has an individual barcode. This barcode tells the computer what the item is and how much it costs. Multiple items can be scanned this way, with the computer remembering the whole list and displaying the total cost at the end. This is more reliable than a human adding all of this up as computer sare less likely to make mistakes.

Another way technology has affected the way people work is through the use of automated assembly lines. This is where computers control robots to produce vast numbers of identical products very quickly. This is useful as it means that the products are made a lot quicker comapred to humans making them. This will greatly increase the efficiency of a company. Computer controlled robots do not need to rest and are far more accurate than humans can be. This means that they can work almost non-stop and with far greater precision.