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employers and employees
. 

Reduced need to follow the chain-of-command 

Information 
overload 

Nature 
of 
work 

Close business relationships regardless of geographical location 

More flexible working arrangements 

Greater monitoring and control 
Delayering has gone hand in hand with a trend towards 
downsizing
whereby large numbers of managers 
and staff have been made redundant. 
9.4 Homeworking and supervision 
Advances in communications technology have, for some tasks, reduced the need for the 
actual presence 
of an individual in the office
. This is particularly true of tasks involving computers. 
(a) 
The employee can, for example, do tasks involving data entry at home. 
(b) 
The keyed-in data can be sent over a telecommunications link to head office. 
(c) 
Some firms see benefits in employing the services of a pool of freelance workers, when there is a 
demand. This approach is being adopted in publishing and journalism. 
This is sometimes known as homeworking (or, occasionally, telecommuting if it involves IT). The 
practice is not new in itself, but it is relatively new to the management of the office. 
9.5 Outsourcing 
Outsourcing
is the contracting out of specified operations or services to an external vendor. There are 
various outsourcing options available, with different levels of control maintained 'in-house'. Outsourcing 
has 
advantages
(eg use of highly skilled people) and 
disadvantages
(eg lack of control). 
Outsourcing
is the contracting out of specified operations or services to an external vendor. 
9.5.1 Types of outsourcing 
There are four 
broad classifications
of outsourcing, as described in the following table.