E-Business Re-Shapes Administrative Profession

By Diane Strong, Office Workers Career Centre

“The use of the Internet for business purposes is already having a profound impact on the largest non-managerial occupational group in the workforce – office support workers. E-business practices are changing the tools clerical workers use, where they work, who they are employed by, and their relationships with clients, customers, suppliers, managers and colleagues.” That’s a central conclusion of research by the Office Workers Career Centre to evaluate the impact of e-business on administrative and clerical workers.

The research report Impact of E-Business on Office Work prepared by Alice deWolff focuses on office support workers as “information” workers who will be significant participants in e-business work environments. They need to develop related skills and a new labour market savvy and they need to stay ahead of the learning curve.

E-Business Work Processes

Electronic business or “e-business” is the building of an infrastructure on the Internet to do all types of business to business (B2B) administration: communication, accounting, purchasing, bidding, and handling employee payroll and benefits. The network of businesses that can be linked on-line is global, less expensive and more reliable than in-house systems.

While the Toronto region is poised to launch into B2B, most workplace web sites are not interactive and among those that are, very few have integrated data from the web site into the rest of their systems. This latter step is the one that most profoundly affects administrative support work processes. Workplaces, which have begun to work with interactive and integrated systems, are learning that projects take longer, develop serious implementation problems and cost more when support staff have not received sufficient training.

More Complex Skills and Knowledge Required

The report of e-business practices and related administrative work processes shows that office workers in these environments have increased responsibilities, knowledge and skills. They are:

• working at an increasingly complex level with a wider range of software
• responding to large volumes of e-mail and real time voice queries
• responsible for web-sites–updating information, responding to users, and writing promotional descriptions of inventories and services.
• expected to respond faster, access a wide range of databases, and to use the Internet to find “bargains”.
• coordinating the data entry and maintenance of in-house systems with a wider variety of out-sourced systems
• working for administrative and financial service contractors providing services for a variety of client companies.

Job Gains or Job Losses?

As the construction of the e-business administrative infrastructure continues, job losses are anticipated. The accessibility and low cost of e-business applications begin to make it possible for a wider range of workplaces to manage significant administrative reductions. They can contract out all their non-core business to Internet companies and non-core business is office administrative work e.g. payroll, HR, accounting.

Office workers have already experienced, during this transition period, a growth in contract, part-time and temporary work in Canada. The report identifies administrative job functions that are more vulnerable to e-business downsizing such as accounts payable and receivable, payroll, reservations and inventory maintenance and job functions that are less vulnerable such as customer service, shipping and receiving and scheduling. There may be some sector specific impact, including continued losses in finance and administrative services and significant potential for losses in the public sector.

What Career Counsellors Can Do

Career counsellors need to familiarize themselves with new technology and with current labour market information affecting office support workers, because any discomfort with either will likely be communicated to clients who may already be feeling a lack of confidence. Recognizing the tremendous transformation to office support work, counsellors can empathize with and better support clients who are office support workers in transition. They can underline the importance of:

• learning to reframe. Change can mean opportunity if one is prepared and can envision possibilities rather than limitations in the evolution of office support work.
• reviewing how current skills may be transferable into e-business (growth) industries.
• identifying personal learning styles for optimum learning comfort as workers prepare for the need to learn constantly.
• figuring out how to have fun with the learning process and identifying what technology can be self-taught, what needs instruction manuals, and what requires formal instruction.
• exploring the Internet to become familiar with how e-business sites operate, new technology, and what services relate to your work– the new support worker will be able to save time and money for the company by knowing the Internet in depth.
• setting career paths in new directions, if their current jobs are vulnerable or their comfort level with technology is minimal.
• managing transition. Office support workers have historically been the vanguard of change… they were the first group of workers to use computers in their daily work lives. They have demonstrated great flexibility in the past and continue to demonstrate ability to absorb change and master new work tools and processes. Appreciating and clarifying these past accomplishments will build confidence.

Article adapted from The Impact of E-Business on Office Work by Diane Strong, Director of the Office Workers Career Centre. OWCC provides specialized employment counselling and self-taught computer upgrading to office support workers. For more information, contact (416) 925-7155 or to download the report visit www.officeworkers.org