How Business Technology is Integrating our Personal and Professional Lives.
The personal lives of business owners [3] and employees are merging with their professional lives like never before, and many aspects of this convergence are happening in the realm of technology. Communication technology and business technology are joining forces, which presents both benefits and obstacles to businesses owners and their staff. Here are a few key areas in which innovations in business technology and personal technology have become blurred.
Business Technology: The Online Store and Marketing Outlet
Websites, blogs, and company social media networks operate twenty four hours a day, seven days a week. Customers can obtain help and product information even at three in the morning, and they can make purchases through online retail outlets whenever they like. But a store that never closes needs a form of twenty four hour maintenance and attention. Likewise, social media feeds and blogs need constant moderation, which means nine to five schedules are no longer the norm. Especially for small businesses and startups [4], owners are never entirely off duty.
Personal and Business Technology: Employee Mobility
Employees have always wanted specific items from employers that play a strong role in retention success. These once centered around salary issues, but increasingly, employees are even more interested in flexibility regarding work hours. Mobile technology is making it possible for employers to respond to this demand, and more employees than ever before are working from home and checking in while on the road. But there’s a trade-off: the average employee now works many more hours per week in exchange for this “flexibility,” and both workers and managers are on call even when they aren’t on the clock.
Personal and Business Technology: Social Media
Social media started as a way for individuals to stay connected to friends and family. But at this point, it’s worked its way into almost every aspect of life, and the lines between personal and professional social media use have become blurred. Some small business owners, for example, try to establish a web presence for their businesses by simply migrating the contacts on their personal accounts over to their professional profiles, even though marketing experts don’t recommend this. And recruiters and hiring managers are always looking for ways to incorporate social media into their candidate searches and screening strategies, though this too can cause problems for a company’s reputation and bottom line.
If you own or manage a small business, how are you navigating the line between personal and professional technology? Leave your thoughts and comments in the section below.