GRE Argument Topic 55

NOTE: The above topic has wording similar to Argument Tasks 32 and 87 of this Website. However, if you read carefully you will notice that the topic and the task instructions are different. Hence, it is very important to read the topic as well as its instructions completely before you start to write your response.

Sample 1:

The vice president for human resources at Climpson Industries recommends implementing internet monitoring coupled with punishments for personal use in an effort to increase employee productivity and subsequently improve the company’s profits. Before embarking on a costly venture, the company’s president needs to have additional information in relation to the project’s cost benefit analysis and the overall effectiveness of such a measure.

The vice president for human resources claims that implementing electronic internet monitoring devices would ultimately lead to an increase in the company’s profits. By looking at the cost of the monitoring system reported to the percentage of the expected increase in productivity, the company’s president can determine if the venture will be profitable. It is possible that the cost of purchasing, installing and maintaining the monitoring system far outweighs the expected revenue increase due to the boost in monthly productivity. In this case, the result of the policy change would have contrary results to the predicted increase in profits. Should the cost of the internet monitoring system be recovered in a timely manner from the expected productivity increase, then the venture would pass financial muster.

The author further claims that electronic monitoring of internet usage will positively affect productivity. In order to assess this statement, the company’s president should examine evidence related to the current recreational methods used by employees during work hours, in terms of amount of time spent, the time slot dedicated to such activities, the amount of activities occurring online or being performed on personal devices. When trying to establish the efficiency of the internet monitoring system, the director should first look into the percentage of the work day that is spent on personal internet use in order to determine if said amount of time is sufficient enough to warrant the implementation of the system. If the amount is on average less than 30 minutes per day (5% out of the 8 work hours) then it is highly unlikely that productivity will be significantly bolstered by internet monitoring. However, if it turns out that employees are regularly spending over an hour on recreational activities during work, then a means of reducing said amount of wasted time would have a positive impact on the company’s productivity. The director would also have to consider how effective would the internet monitoring system be in preventing browsing for personal reasons. Here is where the percentage of people owning phones or tablets with internet comes into play. This evidence would serve to indicate whether internet monitoring of the workstations would prevent people from using the internet for personal browsing. There are a number of studies that show that a great majority of people would switch to browsing on their personal devices should their workstations be monitored. If a great percentage of the company owns tablets and smartphones, then it is highly likely that internet monitoring will not have much of an effect in stopping the amount of time people spend on the internet for personal reasons. Even if the majority of people would not possess personal devices with access to the internet, implementing an internet monitoring measure is not guaranteed to increase the amount of time employees spend working, given that they could redirect their attention toward offline based time wasting activities.

Which brings us to the next point – the author assumes that browsing is the sole or major time wasting opportunity available for the people in the company. Which is why comparing the amount of time wasted online with the time spent on non-productive offline activities can provide an accurate gauge of which activity is the most wasteful and therefore more deserving of efforts directed towards preventing it. The vice-president needs this data to demonstrate that browsing is the main non-productive activity prevalent in the company, in which case finding ways of stopping it would prove beneficial for the company. Should the balance lean the other way, and the preferred way of wasting time be related to the offline environment, like socializing with colleagues, then the vice-president’s suggested solution would be focusing on the wrong problem, and the company’s productiveness would not increase.

This view that Internet monitoring and sanctions against personal use will improve productivity rests on the assumption that the time spent working is productive time. By analyzing the amount of time spent on non-productive work related activities, the vice-president should be able to see if the extra work time the employees would gain through internet monitoring will be spent in a productive manner or not. Should people spend a great part of their work day on non-productive activities like meetings, then a far more effective and less costly method of increasing productivity would be to reduce the number of meetings. However, if all the time spent working proves to be spent productively, then it would be reasonable to conclude that the vice-president’s suggested policy change can positively impact the company’s productivity rates.

Before making a potentially costly decision, Climpson’s board of directors can analyze the potential effects without taking on the risk of implementing the policy change by comparing productivity data from companies that have already implemented internet monitoring, with that of companies managing without it. For instance, Google, provides employees with additional recreational time beside the standard lunch hour and encourages people to work on personal projects. According to Google’s reports, after implementing these methods productivity has skyrocketed. Following this example, implementing internet monitoring might actually prove detrimental to the company’s productivity rates, and the more profitable avenue would be to implement an employee-autonomy work schedule. Alternately, the example of other companies might demonstrate the effectiveness of internet monitoring in bolstering productivity and the vice-president’s suggestion would be validated by external proof of concept.

Ultimately, before making a case for implementing internet monitoring policies the vice-president should consider alternate methods of bolstering productivity before settling on a single method. His decision would be greatly aided by gaining a better understanding of the makeup and importance of time wasting activities, so as to prevent spending resources on the wrong or lesser problem.