At the European Telework Online website

"Telework 1997":
Annual Report from the European Commission

3. Status of European Telework:

3.3 Belgium and Luxembourg

The years 1995-1996 were a turning point, as far as public awareness of teleworking is concerned in Belgium. Previous to this, a number of enterprises had experimented with various types of teleworking, especially in relation to mobile workers such as sales reps. The Belgian insurance company ABB was an early pioneer with a small-scale home-teleworking programme.

In the last two years, teleworking has received much greater levels of attention and media coverage. Politicians, business chambers of commerce and trade unions have become involved in the debate. Other developments in 1995-1996 included:

• Belgacom opened a first satellite office in Ghent (90 employees from their central office in Brussels). Middle managers have ISDN lines and computers at home.
• Belgium's first telecentre, run by a company called Innotek, started operation in the town of Geel, providing 15 workplaces for employed and self-employed workers
• a number of large companies, including IBM that moved on from pilot trials in the early 1990s to full blown implementation involving around 80% of total staff, implemented telework schemes and/or launched 'shared office' programmes.

The Belgian TeleWorking Association (BTA) was launched at the end of 1994. At the end of 1996 the association had about 110 members, of whom about 70 are corporate and institutional members. BTA's membership includes many major companies, including Alcatel Bell, Belgacom, Bull, Canon, Digital, IBM, Philips and Unisys whilst universities in membership include Universite Libre de Bruxelles and Vrije Universiteit Brussel. BTA has an office in Brussels, produces a newsletter, operates a web site and organises seminars and conferences.

BTA has created four special interest groups, on security, SMEs and self-employed, education, training and human resources management, with a fifth (on the Internet/Intranet) in preparation. The Association plans to continue to develop its membership among business organisations and professionals. It also plans to co-ordinate activities in Belgium for European Telework Week 1997.

As far as Luxembourg is concerned, there is no independent teleworking association, but nevertheless things are moving since the country hosted the international Telework Congress in June 1996. At the present time, the P&T Luxembourg, the Post and Telecommunications office, is offering private enterprises facilities to participate in a pilot project with the aim of gaining experience in teleworking. A training scheme is being set up in the Luxembourg area in which people come in to be trained as a teleworker for a period of three months. Work for six months after that is guaranteed for successful students.

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This html version of the European Commission report is provided and maintained by Marco Colonna, Telework Specialist in the European Telework Online website team.
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Page last updated: 24 October 1997