Blessing or Burden?

It’s hard to believe that pagers were once status symbols, totems reserved for doctors on call and other key professionals doing critical, time-sensitive work. Not only are pagers now produced in colors meant to appeal to children, they are widely regarded by adults as intrusive tethers to their jobs.

And how about cell phones? The romance faded fast for a lot of harried workers who experienced the cognitive dissonance of being forced to deal with a work crisis in the middle of a leisure event.

Which raises the question: Is technology improving our working conditions or eroding our quality of life? Paul Saffo, director of the Menlo Park, Calif.-based Institute for the Future, and University of Tennessee Information Sciences Professor J. Michael Pemberton debate the issue here.

Saffo, who is often asked to speak about the future of technology, is ambivalent about technology’s impact on the workplace. Pemberton, on the other hand, is a self-proclaimed neo-Luddite (a moniker derived from 19th century English millworkers who destroyed machinery for fear it would supplant their jobs).

Pemberton emphasizes, however, that he still relies on “a computer in my administrative office, one in my faculty office, one in my study at the library, two laptops at home and a new desktop computer.”

Just what do you consider to be technology in the workplace?

Pemberton: The telephone system, the fax machine, dictation systems, photocopiers, filing systems, even pneumatic tubes. But not every information need is a computer application--that’s what makes me a neo-Luddite. When you go into a doctor’s office, in the front you have people at terminals, and then in the back somewhere there are these open shelves of file folders. Why don’t the doctors take all the patient files and put them in the computer? Because it wouldn’t be worthwhile, it wouldn’t be cost-justifiable.

Saffo: Everything in the workplace is technology. Our workplaces are defined by technology and exquisitely tuned to technological innovations. The shape of the workplace has been changing steadily for the last 100 years, and the focus is on what new technologies are going to lead to workplace surprises.

The effect of technology on employees’ working lives often depends on who they are and where they work, according to Stanford professor of economics Timothy Bresnahan, who co-directs the Stanford Computer Industry Project. Do some industries produce more techno-stress for their employees than others?

Saffo: The new technologies can be liberating or they can be new intellectual tiger cages for employees. The most appalling to me are the monitoring systems for tele-operators. The last thing you want to be is a reservation clerk for a major airline, because they monitor your every keystroke. The subtler and tricky part happens with people who choose their own technologies. We have this quest for the any time, anyplace office. The problem is, if you’re not careful the any time, anyplace office can become the every time, everyplace office, where you can’t escape your e-mail and your phone, and you become slaves to them.

Pemberton: At the turn of the century, about 95% of the people who did office work were men, but by 1930 about 95% of the people doing office work were women. I have this concern that the pink-collar professions have been somewhat abused in the workplace in terms of being underpaid and overworked. But the question is, how have these technologies changed their lives? Have they changed them for the better? I can’t say that the technology has changed them for the better at all.

Was there a turning point in the last decade when technology, with the proliferation of faster PCs, e-mail and the Internet, started to have a marked impact on workers? Or will it take a while to see the effects of more advanced technologies?

Pemberton: A significant problem with any technology is that the cycles of emergence of the technology and the obsolescence of the technology just come so much faster than ever before. That means the technology available for use is way ahead from our ability to foresee and evaluate some of the related issues, like impact on work life.

Saffo: When the PC first arrived, it delivered clear benefits to single individuals--so clear that single individuals in 1981 were spending their own personal money on PCs to bring to the office. But it wasn’t until about 1986 that researchers could demonstrate real team benefits of PCs. As a rule of thumb, it takes 10 to 12 years from the first commercial release of a technology for it to diffuse out through the entire business world.

Americans are unable to have a dialogue about the pitfalls of the technology revolution because everyone has signed on that it’s a good thing, says Mark Slouka, a lecturer in popular culture at UC San Diego. Does America’s inability to question technology’s usefulness harm workers?

Saffo: Americans have not always loved technology. We’re headed toward a real technology backlash. It probably won’t hit until after the year 2000, just because the millennial effect makes everyone optimistic. The more you move away from the early enthusiasts and sell into the general public, at some point you’ll hit a part of the population that discovers that the emperor, while not naked, is severely underdressed. PCs cost too much, they are way too difficult to use for no good reason, and the Web is way too slow.

Pemberton: I think there’s a kind of subtle intimidation at work about information technologies. If you don’t accept it completely and wholeheartedly without reservation, you find yourself kind of isolated. Some senior managers are beginning to get annoyed that they were promised this information technology would make them more productive and it would reduce cost, and it’s just not doing it. One of the things that I say is, if technology is the answer, what is the question?

Technology has collapsed the time we have to get things done and has increased everyone’s expectations. Has this increased the stress workers feel?

Pemberton: I would assume that before the technology got bigger, better and faster, employees were doing pretty much a full day’s work as it was. People are forgetting the human factor. There isn’t a whole lot that’s changed about human beings in the last 10,000 years. There’s a lot that’s changed about the technology. But the technology is kind of getting beyond the human ability to deal with it. It seems to me like people are designing information technology not being knowledgeable about how human beings process information. Instead of it being designed with the person in mind first, it’s designed so that people have to adapt themselves to the technology.

Saffo: It’s given some people more freedom. We saw it in financial trading. As the machines got cheaper and the service more versatile, individual traders said, “What am I doing in Manhattan when I could be in Aspen?” We’re also beginning to see a class society of people using technology in business. It’s beginning to look increasingly like a transcontinental flight, where you’ve got a large number of people crammed back in the technological coach, where they have little control over their lives and schedules; a smaller, but not insignificant, group in business class where things ain’t so great, but they’re grateful not to be in coach; and a small number sitting up in the first-class cabin sipping Chardonnay on their decks in Aspen.

Paul Strassmann, author of “The Squandered Computer” says, “It is safe to say that so far nobody has produced any evidence to support the popular myth that spending more on information technologies will boost economic performance.” Is it true that computers have not boosted productivity?

Saffo: The issue is it’s not spending that affects performance, it’s how these things are used. This revolution is in it’s infancy. It’s too soon to tell if this stuff is boosting performance. The statisticians may not be happy, but there are a lot of individual users you could go out and ask, “Is this changing your life for the better?” I think you would get a lot of affirmatives. Practically speaking, for any business these days, if you wait for smoking-gun evidence about the benefit of a technology you will adopt it so late that you won’t get any competitive advantage.

Pemberton: I’ve never personally seen a credible research-based study that proves that information technologies enhance worker productivity. If you read stories about improved productivity, they tend to be vague, and they’re written by a vendor representative. If you try to measure productivity in dollar amounts, you have to include the cost of the technology and software and training and the cost of upgrades and training for these.

Strassmann also laments the billions spent each year to update hardware and software for computer systems. Much of this equipment goes unused, he says, because it’s confusing to operate and because firms don’t have any need for certain applications. Can some businesses make do with only the most basic systems?

Pemberton: The Assn. for Information and Image Management found that 90% of records in U.S. offices are being created in paper. But 90% of the information dollar is being put into computers. This money is not being spent to make what we have better, it’s being spent to reward innovation. We might want to look at what’s been working for a long time.

Saffo: It’s scandalous how badly designed software and hardware is today. In many ways it’s unavoidable because the development process inevitably requires users being unwitting beta testers. There are structural and economic reasons in the software industry why companies have no choice but to release incomplete products. People think they buy software from Microsoft--they don’t; they subscribe to it. Because once Microsoft does an update, you’re going to have to buy it.

Is high tech leveling the playing field between big companies and small businesses, and encouraging entrepreneurs?

Saffo: When it comes to the adoption of new technology by businesses, the playing field is not level. Advantages adhere to the smaller players. All other things can be equal, but smaller players are in a much better position to take advantage of these technologies and leverage them for business.

Pemberton: The little guy will make a better living, and information technology will make a significant difference. More work will be done by smaller organizations with a smaller number of customers and an emphasis on customer service. Technology will help them stay tied better to their customers.

In Hong Kong, the word for mobile phone literally translates as “little big brother,” and today it’s a sign of status to work for a company that does not supply one to you. Will American companies start to say no to new technologies?

Pemberton: We’re about to the point where more questions are going to be asked. Companies will demand to see better evidence that technology will make a difference and will make them more productive and help them save more money.

Saffo: It’s the leading edge of a trend. When a new technology arrives and it’s scarce, it’s status to carry it. And when it becomes ubiquitous, it’s status to not carry it. Once upon a time, if you carried a pager you were a cardiac surgeon or an arms control negotiator. Now it just means you have an electronic dog leash that someone can jangle you on.

What are some of the biggest challenges companies face today in trying to integrate new technologies into the workplace?

Saffo: The biggest challenge is not fooling themselves. Don’t kid yourself into thinking that you’re using the new technology to innovate, when in fact you’re using the new technology to preserve an old habit.

Pemberton: The idea of access to information by the individual worker to help him or her do a job will increase. There’s two ways to get information: You go where it is, or it comes to where you are. Having it come to where you are is more useful, so there will be this so-called seamless integration of all these systems. The challenge is to make all the various kinds of systems compatible.