At the European Telework Online website

"Telework 1998":
Annual Report from the European Commission

3 Status of European telework

3.1 European overview

The picture emerging in 1998 highlights four main trends in our understanding and use of telework. First, in Europe as a whole telework in its several different manifestations is now increasing at an accelerated rate. The 1997 report suggested that something over two million Europeans were teleworking in one form or another; today (mid-1998) they number upwards of four millions. Second, it is now more widely understood that telework methods and practices cannot be understood and applied successfully in isolation. Telework is increasingly seen in the context of, and applied in conjunction with, other key Information Society techniques - notably teletrade (using networks in the context of marketing and of customer-supplier relationships) and telecooperation (people and organisations using electronic networking methods to develop and enhance relationships). Third, the nature and role of telework vary significantly in different places and contexts. Different aspects of teleworking assume importance in rural as opposed to urban settings, in areas of high and low employment, in areas of high and low intensity of ICT penetration and use, in large bureaucratic organisations and in small, rapidly evolving ones. There are many common lessons to be learned and issues to be addressed, but also much knowledge and understanding to be gained from awareness and analysis of differences - between countries and regions as well as between organisations. And fourth, although telework is increasing, some significant barriers to progress remain, demanding attention by legislators, company executives and the social partners. Notably, the benefits of teleworking are readily understood and obtained in enterprises that are effective users of ICTs, have confident managers and employees and operate where local administrations and unions have a positive, proactive stance to innovation and change. Where some or all of these characteristics are missing, telework (along with other new working methods) is either low on the agenda or practised informally and without appropriate organisational support. This section examines each of these four trends in the context of a country-by-country review of the telework environment and activities.

A further significant conclusion arising from these trends is the importance of appropriate measurement, reporting and interpretation. This applies to factors that have always been important to national planners, politicians and multinational enterprises in the industrial society but will now be important to local planners and smaller enterprises, together with new metrics informing managers and planners about the Information Society, it's opportunities and it's requirements.

3.1.1 How many teleworkers?

Telework awareness and take-up continue to increase and current estimates suggest that some 4 million Europeans are now teleworking in some form or other. In some countries (notably the Netherlands and the United Kingdom), "informal" telecommuting - that is, working at home part of the time based on informal agreement between manager and employee, rather than in the context of an organised company scheme - has become quite commonplace and no longer a matter for special comment. This is leading to a quite rapid acceleration of take up in these countries.

A few countries have started to measure aspects of telework through adding relevant questions to established national surveys; achieving common approaches to this is an important future goal. Meanwhile different studies (both commercial and official) produce different results, and it is often difficult to obtain a full insight into their definitions and methodologies, making it impossible to compare like with like. IDC (1997)³¹ estimated the number of corporate telecommuters in 11 European Union countries based on data about use of PCs in the home for accessing corporate data, while Nilles (1997)³² estimates the overall prevalence of teleworking based on analysis of various surveys and inputs, using a specialised socio-economic model. The ETD project has made more recent estimates for the number of teleworkers as at late 1997, using local reports and in-country surveys together with the detailed local knowledge of practitioners:

Definitions of telework are addressed in an Annex to this report, but a brief explanation of this table is needed here. Corporate telecommuters represent the narrowest definition of teleworking. The individual is an employee who would otherwise be office based; works at home or in a local telecentre on a regular basis (though not necessarily full time); and uses ICTs (typically today a computer and a modem) to access corporate networks and communicate with colleagues. A further refinement is to consider the extent to which teleworkers are supported by their employer through some kind of organised scheme; in the ETD data this is labelled "formal" telework. Both the Nilles estimate and the ETD estimates for "total" teleworking cover a much wider spectrum of activities. They include: employees who telework by personal arrangement with their manager but without necessarily enjoying corporate support or access to corporate networks; self-employed people who are classed as teleworkers because their preferred work base is the home and they connect with customers and colleagues across networks; field-based workers who now go straight to their on-the-spot work from home, using telecommunications for their company transactions and relationships rather than starting each day at the company's offices; and customer contact staff working in centralised telecommunications-based teams instead of distributed to local High Streets or visiting customers.

Even these broad encompassing definitions of telework can overlook some types of work where the technology has profoundly influenced location, travel and working relationships. The ACTS project TECODIS evaluates methods for supporting software development teams that work together on the same project while based in widely dispersed locations. The people concerned may travel locally to work each day, so they are not telecommuters; but their main working relationships may be with people in another location a thousand miles away. The employer and the project participants regard this as a form of teleworking, but such "teleworkers" will not be detected by (for example) national labour force surveys that enquire about the use of computers for working at home.

This leads to problems particularly where attempts are made to quantify the numbers of teleworkers or the number of 'teleworkable jobs'. Different ways of collecting telework statistics are being followed in different countries, making direct comparisons extremely difficult. In the desirable process of harmonising the collection of labour force and other data, it will be important not only to adopt common definitions but also to ensure that phrasing of questions in different countries does not yield incompatible results because of the different understanding and expectations of technology and work patterns in different cultural and economic settings (see below). Meanwhile, the available data certainly confirms that telework is on the increase. Other patterns emerging from this data are discussed below.

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