Distributed workforce

A distributed workforce is a workforce that reaches beyond the restrictions of a traditional office environment. A distributed workforce is dispersed geographically over a wide area – domestically or internationally. By installing key technologies, distributed companies enable employees located anywhere to access all of the company's resources and software such as applications, data and e-mail without working within the confines of a physical company-operated facility. A distributed workforce is a workforce that reaches beyond the restrictions of a traditional office environment. A distributed workforce is dispersed geographically over a wide area – domestically or internationally. By installing key technologies, distributed companies enable employees located anywhere to access all of the company's resources and software such as applications, data and e-mail without working within the confines of a physical company-operated facility. This is not a virtual business, where employees are distributed but remain primarily unconnected. A company with a distributed workforce connects its employees using a networking infrastructure that makes it easy for team members across the world to work together. Using a shared software approach called SaaS, or software as a service, workers and teams can share files securely as well as access the company's databases, file sharing, telecommunications/unified communications, Customer relationship management (CRM), video teleconferencing, human resources, IT service management, accounting, IT security, web analytics, web content management, e-mail, calendars and much more. New technologies are changing important aspects of how we live and work, and the ways we manage distance in the work environment.The management of distance requires more than just technical artifacts. In fact, techniques, social conventions and norms, organizational structures, and institutions are also required. In this section, we take a look at the ways ''distributed work'' has evolved over the past several centuries, but we specifically cover the last 50 years. Over the 20th century the workplace became increasingly associated with the office building. In the mid 1900’s, the most prominent business strategy was based on a mechanistic view of office workers as units of production to be housed in a unified and controlling space. Then, in the 1960s the office was seen as a communications system, with the floorplan opening up to facilitate the free flow of information. This office space was designed with the intention of fostering communication and flexible teamwork within the physical location. Then in the 1980s there was a major workplace revolution as the computer moved from the computer room to the desktop. In the 1990s a second workplace revolution saw the introduction of “new ways of working” a response to the realization that information technology was transforming cultural, social, technological and construction processes. At this time, the virtual world and digital tools reduced the need for synchronous, face-to-face communication and colocation for office workers for the purposes of carrying out defined tasks.This digital revolution was the convergence between communications and computing technologies which now allows individuals and organizations to connect in ways, and on scales that were previously inconceivable. Today, the new economy is characterized by an increasing virtualization of products, processes, organizations and relationships. The new economy production no longer requires people to work together in the same physical space to access the tools and resources they need to produce their work and allows for distributed work.