Topic 1: Increasing travels between countries enable people to learn different cultures or to increase tension between people from different countries

Topic 23: Many employees may work at home with modern technology. Some people claim that it benefits only workers, but not employers. Do you agree or disagree?

The spread of telecommunication technology — using the Internet, telephone, fax, scanners or text messaging — has opened up a new range of possibilities for working at home. Discussion has centred on whether it represents a benefit to workers alone, but not employers. In my opinion, employers can take full advantage of home working as well.

By allowing employees to work at home, employers can widen the base from which they recruit and boost the chances of capitalising on rich human capital. For instance, parents with childcare responsibilities and those with disabilities prefer to work at home. Distance between their work place and their place of residence has never ceased to be a problem. Homeworking enables working people to perform their jobs at ease, and thus gives employers more options in human resource use.

Another benefit obtained from home-working is the boost for staff motivation. By working at home, employees can manage their time on their own and strike a balance between work and rest. Similarly important is that, without the presence of their immediate supervisors, they feel less stressful and more comfortable. Those two factors both play a part in boosting their productivity and job satisfaction.

Apart from those benefits, homeworking might have its drawbacks. A challenge that employers have to face is the difficulty in managing and monitoring employees' performance. Whether employees are as likely to meet a deadline when working at home as they are in the workplace remains unclear. Similarly difficult is to maintain team spirit because employees have limited interaction between each other. Furthermore, staff training, an integral part of increasing human capital, is not practical in a business where homeworking predominates.

Therefore, it is clear that although employers can benefit a lot from integrating homeworking into his or her business, e.g., introducing more flexibility and increasing employees' job satisfaction, they should work out methods to prevent the problems that are likely to arise from this move.

1. 
   represent = stand for = signify
   
2. 
   capitalise on = take (full) advantage of = make the most of = benefit from
   
3. 
   work place = place of work
   
4. 
   at ease = comfortably = free from anxiety
   
5. 
   productivity = output = efficiency = yield
   
6. 
   team spirit = cohesion = unity
   
7. 
   interaction = communication = contact