There is a wealth of experience in Sweden in the use of ICTs for different types of teleworking. This will be demonstrated at the Telework 97 conference to be held in Stockholm in September 1997.
Despite the large geographical distances involved, the country has a well-developed telecommunications infrastructure. 32% of employees use e-mail, for example. Mobile phones are widely used and the concept of teleworking is widespread.
| Braintrain The Braintrain-concept has been developed by the Mid Sweden University as a way of initiating discussions about integrated communication systems and the design of trains for "efficient travelling". The main feature is a train which satisfies the transportation and teleworking demands from everybody within the network university. It offers fully-equipped individual offices as well as compartments for conference groups. Swedish science fiction? |
Statistics about teleworking suffer from the usual problems of definition. One recent study suggests that approaching 25% (or about half a million) of Swedish white-collar workers are teleworking either from their homes or from offices away from the main workplace. Half are teleworking for more than eight hours a day. Making allowances for overtime working at home, this reduces to about 7% of the white-collar workers, or about 4% of the whole labour force.
A number of large companies have formally adopted teleworking programmes. These include Siemens-Nixdorf, Bull, Telia, Skandia, Digital, and Ericsson.
| Siemens Nixdorf Siemens Nixdorf is a particularly interesting example, having developed a major teleworking programme in 1994-1995 at a time when it was relocating its office to a new, less central, site about 30 km north of Stockholm. More than four-fifths of the staff now telework. The company, which developed the telework programme in conjunction with the union SIF, expects workers to come to the office at least one day a week. Siemens-Nixdorf is one of a number of companies with an interest in telework who are members of DistansForum, which seeks to develop good practice in flexible and remote forms of working. |
There has been considerable interest among trade unions in Sweden in telework issues. The federation of white-collar trade unions TCO has produced a booklet of guidance to employees, complete with a suggested telework agreement.
Rural Sweden saw an early rapid development of telecottages in the mid 1980s. This has now been consolidated down to the current network of 23 telecottages, several in geographically remote areas. The telecottages participate in an on-line network involving rural development organisations. The Swedish Telecottage Association35, in existence since 1988, includes among its 100 plus members both telecottages and individual teleworkers.
There have been several advertising campaigns using telework as a theme. The telework magazine Distrans magazine has recently been discontinued. Stockholm launched the Bangemann challenge in 1996 of which one of the prizes targets telework in urban areas.
A Swedish IT Commission has been established to drive and coordinate Sweden's move to the Information Society. A number of municipal organisations have taken an active interest in telework. There are telework projects under way in several municipalities in different areas of the country. NUTEK, the Swedish National Board for Industrial and Technical Development, is the main organisation behind the Telework 97 Stockholm conference.
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