Types of telework
Telework, according to one definition, is "distance working facilitated by information and communication technologies". But within this overall definition lies a wide range of different work practices. Teleworking is clearly much more than, for example, the model of home-based work by company employees.
The different forms of teleworking can be approached in different ways:
This section treats each of these categories in turn. You may wish to use the hypertext links to move directly to the section which interests you.
Where telework is performed the home
office
Early telework writers were concerned almost exclusively with this form of telework, where an individual works from their own home. Typically this involves using a PC or terminal, linked up via the telephone lines (or dedicated ISDN line) to computer networks elsewhere.
Because of the poor working conditions which many homeworkers experience in traditional sweatshop industries (such as textiles), concerns have been expressed that electronic teleworking from home might also be an opportunity for the unscrupulous to exploit the vulnerable. Negotiated telework agreements between employers and employees generally maintain good employment practices. Self-employed (or quasi self-employed) individuals, particularly those undertaking low-status teleworking, are perhaps more vulnerable.
A distinction has also been made between home workers who are permanently on-line (for example, agents who are handling incoming telephone calls in a similar way to staff in centralised call centres) and those who can choose when to go on-line (for example, senior staff working at home and occasionally accessing company files or checking e-mail). The work experience of the on-line worker at home is much more dominated by the demands of technology, and offers much less flexibility for the individual.
Most employers with home-teleworking programmes choose to institute what has been called 'Alternating Telework', where employees work only part-time from home, working the remainder of their work time in the office. This form of telework offers more chances of communication between the employer and employee than full-time home-based work.
Mobile (nomadic) telework
Workers whose work entails considerable travel can telework from wherever they happen to be: in a hotel, from home, from a client's premises, or even whilst travelling.
Salespeople, service engineers, and many executives are among the groups who may be able to telework in this way.
Satellite offices
This is a collective form of teleworking, resembling the traditional branch office which many companies have historically operated. The distinction, perhaps, is that whilst branch offices were typically set up to service the needs of local customers or local markets, today satellite offices can be located away from the head office but can still undertake work for the whole organisation, by making use of information technology and telecommunications links.
Examples include the call centres set up in several European countries by banks to handle direct telephone banking from customers. Satellite offices may be able to benefit from cheaper property costs and lower overheads. Staff costs may be lower in geographically remote areas, and the pool of available labour may also be larger.
The existence of specialist data processing centres in so-called 'offshore' destinations (such as the Caribbean, Philippines and mainland China) show that the possibilities for this form of teleworking are global.
Telecentres, neighbourhood offices and telecottages
Here a remote office, equipped with appropriate IT and telecommunications links, is established for use (on an occasional or regular basis) by individual teleworkers. Telecentres are often established as community resources in peripheral or economically disadvantaged areas, as a way of encouraging local economic regeneration. Telecentres provide an alternative to the home office for the individual teleworker, and also can replace the need for companies to establish their own satellite offices - in effect, the provision of the satellite office is outsourced to the telecentre.
The development of telecottages in areas of Europe such as Great Britain, Ireland and Scandinavia is a phenomenon that very explicitly relates to a strategy of using teleworking to overcome regional structural deficits and to enforce the implementation of telecommunication technologies in the regions.
In many cases telecentres and telecottages also offer training courses, especially in the application of IT and communication technologies. Some telecentres also act as a central point of supply for public information and advice services (such as small business advice)
Virtual office
This term is used to describe a radical form of distributed work organisation, where the company's staff work apart, communicating with each other using information and communication technologies, and where the company does not have an actual physical 'head office'. Virtual companies can link workers in many different countries.
Not every teleworker teleworks full time. Home-based employees, for example, may be practising 'alternating teleworking', working partially at their office and only partially from a home base.
The British consultancy Management Technology Associates has developed a useful categorisation of teleworkers, according to the time spent teleworking:
Marginal teleworkers
Those who telework regularly enough to identify themselves with the term
"teleworker", but where the frequency and/or regularity is insufficient for
telework to have become a routine aspect of the work pattern. Psychologically the person
is still a conventional "commuter"; the main workplace is still the employer's
office. The marginal teleworker typically has little in the way of permanent office
facilities at home.
Substantive teleworkers
Those for whom telework is sufficiently regular and frequent to have become a routine
aspect of the work pattern. The "main office" is still regarded as the main work
locus, but the substantive teleworker has also established a routine of working at home
and in most cases will have some kind of office facilities there.
Primary teleworkers
Those for whom telework has become their main work mode. They may have frequent and indeed
regular "days at the office", but the home is now regarded as the main work
"base". All the facilities and equipment needed on a day to day basis are
available in the "office at home".
Employment status
Employed teleworkers
The individual's contract of employment includes the home as a place of work as well as
(or instead of) the employer's premises.
Self-employed or freelance teleworkers
The individual chooses or prefers to work at home. It's always been common for people
starting in business for the first time to work at home until they can afford the
overheads of a "proper" office. Now, an increasing proportion of entrepreneurs
have the confidence to reject the idea of a formal office and continue to grow their
business on a networked basis, with all staff teleworking as individuals.
Informal teleworking
The individual employee and his/her immediate management see the benefits of teleworking
and adopt the practice, although it is not formally part of their employment contract. In
some cases, formal corporate policies may even be opposed to teleworking.
Individual and collective teleworking
The telework consultant and writer Ursula Huws has pointed out the importance of distinguishing between individualised and collective forms of telework. She describes the former as including:
Under the category of collective forms of teleworking she includes:
The sub-contracting of back-office functions (inter-firm relocation, including the use of telecottages or business centres)
Collaborative team-working - the development of distributed team working within organisations, collaborative work between organisations supported by Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) and IT-supported networks of Small and Medium-sized Enterprises and individuals
Teleworking by industrial sectors
Why is telework being introduced? The MIRTI project team has identified different motivating factors in the different sectors in which telework has been introduced.
Larger enterprises in the IT/telecoms sector, insurance and banking have been early implementers of telework. Some have engaged in business process re-engineering, restructuring their existing work organisation with a desire to put the emphasis on managing by objectives, project-orientated work, decentralised working and greater self-management by employees. Others have been looking for successive business re-engineering within a long-term perspective: new ways of working are being introduced through the recruitment of new staff, who have more flexible working arrangements and employment contracts.
Smaller enterprises are more likely to have a different aim in introducing telework. The starting point here is more likely to be the way in which better use of communication technologies and networking practices can improve competitiveness. Typically, a firm whose staff work away from the head office at clients' own premises may appreciate the importance of ensuring that they have full access to company data and information wherever they may be. This transformation of work processes automatically opens the possibility for telework as well.
A completely different perspective can be seen if the public sector is observed. In this case the driving force for the introduction of telework is not the increase in productivity or improvement in competitive position but rather the improvement in the quality of service offered. In several ares of government, there are increased demands for decentralisation of services and a refocusing of service provision to the needs of the citizen. Telework can be a way of implementing these changes. It can also help meet other public objectives (eg a reduction in traffic congestion in urban areas).
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