The 1994 Action Plan adopted by the Commission, entitled Europe's Way to the Information Society, proposed new measures in four areas:
Against this background, DGV prepared a 1995-97 Medium-Term Social Action Programme, which referred to the Commission's plan to publish a communication on telework "to provide examples of good practice". DGV, together with the European Foundation for the Improvement of the Living and Working Conditions, undertook major comparative research and analysis on the Social Implications of Telework. Their studies focused on three themes: labour law, social security and occupational health and safety. Experts drew up national reports under these three headings: 45 reports in all. These analyses were summarised in three reports and on this basis a final report was issued in April 1996. These reports constituted working papers49 for a conference on the Social Implications of Telework which was held in Brussels in May 1996.
The social aspects of telework have recently been addressed by two Green Papers. First by the Green Paper on Living and Working in the Information Society: People First, adopted in mid-1996. The ensuing consultation process showed a somewhat polarised debate, some believing telework should evolve naturally, others arguing that new legislation is needed to protect teleworkers. The follow up to this Green Paper, The Labour Market and Social Dimension of the Information Society50, also addresses telework and announces, inter alia, the launching of a consultation with the social partners on whether and to what extent Community action on the protection of teleworkers is advisable.
The second Green Paper, on A Partnership for a New Organisation of Work51, adopted in mid-April 1997, has a consultation period which will run until 30 November 1997, and which will lead into a major European conference at the beginning of 1998 to discuss all the issues arising. The aim of the Green Paper is to stimulate the debate at European and national level on the organisation of work among all the actors involved. Telework is an important component of the organisation of work in the Information Society and is covered in this Green Paper, which also raises a large number of issues of direct relevance to telework. It is intended that the outcome of debate set in motion by the Green Paper will be a new framework for the modernisation of working life based on partnership, and that this will provide one of the most promising factors for economic growth and prosperity. The Green Paper is articulated around three questions:
The old system of mass production contributed to unprecedented prosperity, but is now not flexible enough for the new age. During the last 20 to 30 years, new ideas have developed leading to step-by-step improvements rather than waiting for a crisis to occur. More recently, however, a more fundamental change in the organisation of work has been made, encapsulated in the concept of continuous change in the flexible firm, whose workplaces are described as high-trust and high-skilled, and which have the basic aim of continuous improvement of quality and productivity. The process of continuous change implies that no one model is preferred. Three driving forces behind this need for change are identified:
These changes have a fundamental impact on three factors:
Does Europe have the ability the change? The new form of work organisation offers a great potential but many firms and public authorities are still organised in the traditional way. The nature of change is as much social as it is technological and has to take account of the social and cultural environment. The Green Paper recognises that new forms of work organisation are demanding and pose challenges for all concerned. In particular, small firms which wish to change may need support because of, for example, lack of resources or lack of expertise.
The implications of the new organisation of work are so wide that it impinges on a huge range of policy areas, including training and retraining, adaptation of social legislation, wage systems, working time arrangements, equal opportunities, the need for more flexible organisations in the public sector, etc. All of these can, however, be encapsulated in one question: how to reconcile workers' needs for security with the flexibility which firms need?
The 1996 comparative research referred to above demonstrated that telework is not something which raises different problems compared to other aspects of work organisation, but is rather symptomatic of a lot of changes anyway taking place in the labour market. In this context, the Green Paper highlights 18 issues, on which DGV will consult public authorities and social partners as part of the development of future policies:
| Issues Concerning Telework Practices |
| Contractual status (employed-self-employed teleworking) Voluntarism and teleworkers’ right to return to the company’s premises Written information on working conditions Equality of treatment between on-site workers and teleworkers Teleworkers' involvement in information, consultation, participation and negotiation Teleworkers' training rights and skill development Social security issues Data protection issues Environmental impact Inviolability of home and the employers' access to it Working time, availability and work load Pay systems Infrastructure, equipment and expenses Teleworkers’ involvement in the company's affairs Separation of working and living environments Health and safety issues, including isolation, stress, checking and control Social implications of trans-border teleworking Legal framework applicable to freelance teleworking, including trade union rights |
The need for partnership and the challenges for the social partners are recurring themes:
The Commission wishes to encourage a European wide discussion of these issues. This could focus on three elements:
To facilitate overall discussion, the Green paper poses three main questions:
The scope and objective of any Community action on telework will of course take into consideration the outcome of the ongoing consultation on the 1997 Green Paper.
The Fourth Framework programme supports European RTD with 13,200 million ECU for a four year period. It brings together universities, research centres and private enterprises, paying particular attention to projects which have a direct impact on competitiveness and the quality of life. Telework is featured in many of the 17 specific programmes of research. Examples include a task to explore possible substitution of commuting in the Transport Research Programme, and a task to explore better use of energy by working at home in the Non-nuclear energy research (THERMIE).
However, the main contributions to furthering the take-up of more flexible ways of working are being made by the three specific programmes related to Information and Communication Technologies: ACTS, ESPRIT, and the Telematics Applications Programme.
An important aim of the 4th Framework RTD programme Advanced Communications Technologies and Services is not only to develop new technology, but also to validate its usefulness to citizens and organisations by using the new technologies in trials with real end users, and to distil out of the work done a number of "Guidelines" in areas of broad policy interest, of which telework is one. This commitment to Guidelines is based on the Maastricht Treaty (Art.129 c). Where these require or could benefit from wider political endorsement, the Commission has the unique responsibility to transmit them to the European Council of Ministers and the European Parliament for consideration as formal recommendations.
In most areas of development related to advanced communications, no groups - even Governments - are in a position to impose guidelines solely on the basis of expert opinion. A wide consensus is a pre-requisite for political endorsement. This is particularly true in the case of telework. An important role for ACTS is therefore to co-ordinate and consolidate the consensus that can be reached in the different constituencies accessed by ACTS projects.
In the Programme, many projects have relationships with one another, for example one develops components for an other's prototype, which may in turn be validated in yet another project. At the most basic level, the deliverable may be the communication of key findings or other information. However, interaction between projects extends much further than this. A structure for an integrated set of projects has been identified in order to optimise meaningful inter-relationships and information exchange between the actors. One of these "chains of projects" is the ACTS Telework Concertation Chain (GAT).
Special attention is needed for trans-border telework. However, the key objective in developing guidelines is to achieve a wide consensus on how to deal with telework. Again, the most important success factor in this is the breadth of consensus. The best set of guidelines from a viewpoint of content is that one that has the commitment and agreement of the major players.
The ACTS Telework Concertation Chain
The ACTS Telework Concertation Chain (GAT) (http://www.eto.org.uk/gat)is a forum for concertation, information exchange and cooperation between independently financed and managed projects. Its focus is the link between ACTS projects (and ACTS as a whole) and a positive and balanced European approach to telework technologies, services, methods and practices. Its specific interest is to ensure that investment in and relating to telework is encouraged by the early resolution of issues and uncertainties, based on consensus among the various constituencies.
The projects within the ACTS Telework Concertation Chain (included in Annex 2) are those which have expressed actual interest. It is clear that, for a fruitful concertation process, this is preferable to an academic analysis of possible roles.
The objectives of the ACTS GAT Chain are to enhance understanding of the link between existing and new technologies and economic and societal success in the context of telework and telecooperation, and to seek consensus around Guidelines that will improve the confidence of users and suppliers in their decision making about these applications. The Chain is also engaged in efforts to broaden European concertation activities in its fields of interest and to provide easier linkages between Europe's Research, Applications, Social Development and Economic Development programmes with respect to telework and telecooperation.
In terms of target recipients there are, broadly speaking, three constituencies that can be accessed by the ACTS community:
In mid 1997, the ACTS GAT Chain has five Guidelines in draft form and is working towards developing the consensus process:
Further work is under way to develop Guidelines emerging from the main themes of the European Telework Charter Initiative by the DIPLOMAT project.
ESPRIT is the short name of the Information Technology Programme which consists of eight domains, and, although telework is not one of these, it features in several. The most important of these is Technologies for Business Processes (TBP), which is based on the acknowledgement that it is not possible simply to introduce, for example, workflow system technologies into businesses without also looking at their organisational structures, processes and goals. TBP's overriding goal is to support innovation in the way European enterprises do business in order to compete effectively world-wide by focusing on three elements: human resources, business processes and technologies and methodologies. The first two are normally the drivers, and the last is the enabler, but sufficient attention must be paid to all three components.
Innovation in business implies a transformation away from the traditional, hierarchical company with processes focused only on internal activity, which excludes those working outside the company, is characterised by both external and internal walls between people, functions and tasks, and where communication takes place only across the top levels and vertically down within functional departments. Decisions and reactions to outside events thus need long lead times. A possible reorganised and transformed company open to innovation is where internal walls have disappeared and the structure has flattened, and lines to customers and suppliers are strengthened. Such a structure requires a good overview of processes being used, how they are being used and who is using them, all of which technology can provide. These processes can be both internal and external to the company, and include contacts, sales, support, distribution, payments, etc. Electronic commerce processes are an important aspect here.
Technologies are needed to effect these processes, including EDI, multi-media, encryption secure technology, etc. In addition, and coming between these technologies and the processes they serve, are applications like management information systems, workflow, co-operative work, human resources systems, document retrieval systems, etc. These applications are needed so that everyone in the restructured company can access and retrieve the information necessary to perform the processes they are involved in, wherever they may be, whether this be in a virtual company, a branch office or the main office. Similarly, methodologies are also important in reorganising a company, whether this involves incremental or radical change, in order to define where you are, where you want to be, and thus the path leading from the former to the latter. A methodology also allows experience to be systematically collected so that the company can learn through its change processes. These methodologies include business process re-engineering (BPR), total quality management (TQM), just-in-time, etc.
ESPRIT-TBP has put in place three types of actions:
Telework, as well as other new ways to work, is seen by ESPRIT as part of the total process of change, and good examples of telework involve much more than an examination simply of where the work is done. Telework requires flexibility within the company and can only succeed if it part of the total concept of the organisation. Apart from TBP, telework is also prominent in a new ESPRIT call which focuses on a series of themes cutting across the existing eight domains, one of which is concerned with mobility.
The major difference between the Telematics Applications Programme (TAP) and other European RTD is that it attempts to move closer to deployment with real prototype development that could become commercial applications. In this context, users play a central role in TAP projects. The TAP covers nine vertical sectors, each concerned with specific areas of activity, like health, education, transport, etc. Interest in telework appears in a number of these but tends to be more explicitly addressed in the TURA sector (Telematics for Urban and Rural Areas), especially through its focus, amongst other things, on:
Other TAP sectors also provide some work of relevance to telework, such as "Education and Training" through its concern for knowledge-based activities, "Healthcare" with remote access to medical services and "Libraries" in terms of availability of remote information sources used by teleworkers. Among the results produced by these sectors, it is worth mentioning the study conducted by the MIRTI project from the "Telematics Engineering" sector on "Models of Industrial Relations in Telework" and the study on "Telework for People with Disabilities" from the AVISE project, a preparatory action from the "Disabled and Elderly" sector.
In the recent TAP Call for proposals (March 1997), a certain number of proposals were presented addressing the topics of "decentralisation of activities" and "support for constrained workers", so it is expected that further projects with telework relevance will shortly be launched. The wide range of telework related activities in TAP highlights the fact that telework is an evolving concept. Initially it was seen largely as people working at home whereas today the concept is much broader than this because:
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