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Essay / The Connection Between Social Media and Business - 554
While the latest technological advancements can provide an organization with effective information dissemination, they also create new challenges in these uncharted waters for today's organizations 'today. The ability to work from home or telecommute can be an ideal situation for both the organization and the right employee interested in flexible hours. With features widely available on today's smartphones and the ever-increasing availability of wireless networks, employees are no longer confined to the confines of their homes or bulky computers. These people now have the freedom to access information from anywhere to get their work done. As with the SCAN Health Plan, one of the benefits of this working arrangement for the employer is that it can provide a way for a business to grow without having to incur additional fixed costs such as office buildings. offices, equipment or parking space (Fundamentals of Management p. 152). Technology has enabled businesses to offer remote working arrangements. The daunting task is to find employees of the highest moral character, with great organizational and time management skills, who are also motivated and disciplined, in addition to being responsible and trustworthy. From a managerial point of view, helping employees feel connected is vital. It will be necessary for management to make additional efforts to develop and maintain a working relationship through constant communications. (Investor's Business Daily 2013) As technological advancements in the quality of video conferencing have continued to improve, it has allowed organizations to communicate in real time even if they are on opposite ends of the world. Unilever, the parent company of many well-known brands, is one such global company. Over the past two years, almost all major innovation projects have been conducted via videoconferencing. Unilever managers are trained and must clarify the objectives of virtual teams. However, preparing employees to operate in an agile manner is not easy. The main pitfalls are introducing concepts too quickly, not having enough time to develop them, and introducing changes without sufficient training for managers who still do not trust employees to be autonomous. There is new technological territory that is changing the way businesses operate. From independent food trucks tweeting their current location to Starbucks cross-promoting across multiple social media sites.