There are many definitions of telework. This causes difficulties when trying to compare the results of different telework surveys and research. The common element across all aspects of telework is
"the use of computers and telecommunications to change the accepted geography of work."
It origins can be traced to the introduction of the term "telecommuting" by Jack Nilles in the USA in his publication The telecommunications transportation trade-off (John Wiley & Sons, 1976), to denote this type of working arrangement. It was popularised by futurist Francis Kinsman in his book The Telecommuters (John Wiley & Sons, 1987). The term "telework" has been popularised in Europe through its use by the European Commission, which from the late 1980s and early 1990s has sponsored considerable research in this field, particularly into the use of telework as a means to develop economic activity and create work opportunities in rural areas or places with economic problems. The most commonly encountered terms are explained below.
Generally interpreted to mean someone who works at home all or part of the time, which is a limited view of the concept. Whereas telecommuter can be seen as an expression to of a worker with an arrangement to avoid commuting by working at home, or closer to home, all or part of the time, a teleworker is someone who uses computers and telecommunications in order to overcome constraints in place or time of work, thus becoming more flexible in the location of work.
An employer-centred concept that encompasses a wide spectrum of new working practices, including flexible working hours as well as flexibility of work location, flexible contracts of employment. It can also mean flexible use of office space, such as ‘hot-desking’, where a group of people don’t have personal desks but share a smaller number of desks, and use whichever one is free.
These are shared office facilities that provides a range of office services, often for employees of several companies, or different departments of the same company. It means that employees can use the office that's most convenient to him or her, rather than specific office space owned by their company or department.
A special class of telecentre, named because of its origins in rural villages. The telecottage movement started in Scandinavia and has now spread to many other parts of Europe, such there are now estimated to be over 500 telecottages across Europe. Telecottages may be converted country cottages, redundant farm buildings or parts of school premises - or they may be conventional office buildings. Telecottages perform multiple roles including offering training in teleworking technology and relevant skills, attracting work that uses these skills and hence being a stimulus to local economic development. They also provide local organisations and businesses access to more expensive office and hi-tech equipment.
In this mode of telework, the home is the locus of work and the main work location or base of a teleworking employee or self-employed teleworker. Part of the home is an ‘office’ workplace, with typical office facilities, such as filing cabinet, business phone, fax and a computer, plus of course, a modem or ISDN link into computer networks.
These teleworkers have no obvious single location where more work takes place than any other. Armed with mobile telephone and/or portable computer, their office is where the nearest phone plug is (or anywhere if they are on battery power and radio communications). Their work is location independent (see LIW below).
A location physically distant from the main office, where one or more workers work. Such work may be individual work e.g. a member of a team who has not relocated to be physically close to the rest of their team, or a whole ‘back-office’ team. Such workers typically have ‘remote access’ to computer systems at the main office.
A term coined by Management Technology Associates during their 1992-1993 Telework Study for the UK Department of Trade & Industry. A variant of the remote office idea where work is split across several countries. Jobs are shifted from one region, town or country to another. Pan-European call handling centres are example of this.
This concept is an extension of the telecottage and is very much about lifestyles and preferences. A televillage is a whole community highly geared to the future work and lifestyles. The whole village is ‘wired’ and each home is fully equipped with an internal network connected to the village network and through broad band communications to the ‘global village’. As portable and mobile technology become more pervasive, the wide range of working modes considered as one form of telework or another, start to blur, as does their comparison with ‘conventional’ work.
Teletrade literally means "doing business over networks". It uses advanced information and communications technologies (such as the Internet) to market and sell goods and services, enhance customer relationships and reach distant markets without the overhead of a local ‘physical presence’. Although similar in concept to electronic commerce, the latter most often refers only to the actual trading transaction e.g. the placing of an order. EDI (Electronic Data Interchange) is an example of a technique that exemplifies the narrow view of electronic commerce. Teletrade covers all aspects of the selling cycle and the buyer-seller relationship. It includes making potential customers aware of products and services, such as through the Internet; providing means of ordering and in some case making payment over electronic networks; providing online support and generally enhancing customer relationships via focused two-way communications (e.g. via email or electronic communities) between buyer and seller.
Telecooperation is the application of information and communications’ technologies by individuals and organisations to enhance communications and access to information. People working collaboratively over a networked as part of a virtual team are an example of telecooperation. So is alliance building to create a network of dispersed individuals who come together to cooperate for a shared purpose. When more formal, this network may be considered a virtual organisation (see glossary). Telecooperation entails new skills and changes to organisations. In particular the information and communications flows of traditional organisational hierarchies are undermined, and the barriers of communication across organisation boundaries are dissolved.
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