European Telework Week 1997 - Information Day 18 April 1997
Presented by Mr Peter Johnston, European Commission DGXIII
"New ways of working, and of organising work, are not just a way of cutting business overheads. They will affect most peopleís working lives and will have major macro-economic effects on growth, trade and employment in the next few years."
With these words Peter JOHNSTON (Head of Programme Preparation and Evaluation for ACTS, DG XIII) kicked off the Information Day.
He pointed out that changes in work practices are a most important element in European Union policies for growth and employment, and that accelerating the transition to an information society is a central theme in EU policies and actions. It is expected that new ways of working will give greater flexibility, allowing better use of resources and skills in a wide range of businesses and will bring a wider range of job opportunities to a broader range of people, allowing a more universal participation.
Due to the revolution in communications, with mobile phones (GSM), digital end-to-end data and voice links (ISDN), digital tv and videoconferencing (MPEG), and the World-Wide Web/INTERNET, business, trade and work will be more flexible in working where it is most efficient to do so, and in ways that are most (cost) effective.
Some quoteís from The European Unionís Information Society Forum , regarding telework and its possible impact at the macro-economic level:
The new information and communication technologies will eventually create more jobs than they destroy, but the speed of delivery depends on how well and how quickly we can adjust to different working and social environments.
It is essential and urgent for companies and organisations of all sizes to adapt their organisations and structures.
Teleworking will be the employment future for millions of people: it should not be feared, but it may need to be carefully regulated.
Teleworking offers many job-creating possibilities and improvements in working lifestyles... public policy must facilitate, not obstruct, its development.
Today the number of Europeans involved in, or affected by, new telework practices reached well over 1 million. "Working over the electronic network" is no longer just for a few technical specialists. Although obviously not yet mainstream it is rapidly becoming a normal part of employment; a normal way of doing a job.
This is particularly true in the UK, Ireland, the Netherlands and the Nordic countries, with a huge potential in Germany, where a rapid growth of subscribers to on-line services, such as Compuserve (growing from 60,000 in 1994 to 320,000 in 1996) indicates the pace of change. Change is much slower in the South of Europe, although the Italian and Spanish Governments have taken initiatives to stimulate telework development in 1996.
As a whole, Europe nevertheless lags behind US development: European investment in IT and communications equipment per employee is only half that in the US (335 ECU/year vs 681 ECU/year in 1995). Only 72% of European office workers have a PC or equivalent, compared with nearly 100% in the USA. Over 14 million US households subscribed to on-line services in 1996 - a figure that is expected to grow to 43 million by 2000. There are about 44 million "work at home" households in the US, of which about 8 million are "telecommuters" (IDC 1996), a figure that is expected to double by 2000.
Main obstacles perceived today are in
These obstacles the European Union attempts to address by progressing the liberalisation of telecommunications infrastructure and service provision, by addressing the issues mentioned in green papers and subsequent documents like the "Partnership for a new work organisation" and "People First: living and working in the Information Society", by ongoing research and development within the 4th and subsequently in the 5th Framework Programme, implementation of new regional development and social fund initiatives under the structural funds, and in the definition of a methodology for the implementation of information society applications, and guidelines for Trans-European telecommunications networks.
European Telework Week is based on subsidiarity. Initiatives should be taken at the appropriate level of interest, whether it is European, national, regional or local and should be supported at that level. European Telework Week extends the discussions and findings to the citizen themselves, with messages and actions at the national, regional and local level, where European and indeed global issues are translated to the national, regional and local context.
Presented by Ms. Vybeke SYLVEST, European Commission DG V Employment, Industrial Relations and Social Affairs.
The aim of the Green Paper is:
The Green Paper is about people (better trained, more creative), markets (consumers look for innovations, variety, novelty, high quality) and technology, specifically ICTs (more flexible, more integration, more processes. It will shortly be available at the World Wide Web, at the EUís host: http://europa.eu.int, in the section policies, on employment and social issues, DG V.
Written comments should be sent to the European Commission, DG V, or by e-mail to: DG5-Partnership@bxl.dg5.cec.be by 30 November 1997.
Presented by Mr. Yvan CAPOUET (DG XIII A).
TEN Telecom is an action designed to help the launch of Trans European telecommunications applications and generic services. The objectives are:
Telework is seen as one of the eight priority areas, and is one of the areas announced in a Call for Proposals on 15 March 1997. It is specifically aiming to establish a basis for Trans-European networks for telework and other new work methods. Examples of project areas are new work sharing applications for SMEs, networks of business centres offering teleworking facilities, networks of call/service centres, and networks of job information databases. Important aspects are the integration of multi media access. Special attention should be paid to evaluating and taking into account social consequences.
Closing date for submission of proposals is 20 June 1997. On-line information is available at http://www.echo.lu. You can contact the TEN Telecom team via e-mail: ten@bxl.dg13.cec.be.
Presented by Mr. Antonio CONTE, representing DG III Industry.
Mr Conte expanded on the objectives and current activities of ISIS. The objective of the action is, by means of 50% co-funded, multinational-consortium-based projects, to support work of an application, validation, or demonstration nature focused on the standards - or contributions to potential new standards, underpinning Information Society related domains of high economic and social impact, such as telework.
Currently there are two projects running in the domain of telework: BINTERMS (Basic Interoperability for Terminals for Telematic Services: 1/1/1997-31/12/1998), aiming at the validation of protocol specification for functional and syntactic completeness, and SHOW (Standards for Home Working: 1/1/1997-31/1/1998), aiming at the definition of a virtual workdesk system for teleworkers.
A further open call for proposals is expected for late 1997/early 1998, and might include, again, proposals in the telework domain.
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