“TELEWORK is a form of organising and/or performing work, using information technology, in the context of an employment contract/relationship, where work, which could also be performed at the employers premises, is carried out away from those premises on a regular basis. This agreement covers teleworkers. A teleworker is any person carrying out telework as defined above.” (Emilio Gabaglio, Georges Jacobs, Andrea Bonetti, Rainer Plassmann, 16.07.2002 – EU agreement among ETUC, UNICE/UEAPME and CEEP, p. 2).
So it can be stated that teleworking is arrangement between employer and employee in which an employee regularly performs officially assigned duties at home or other work sites which are convenient for the employee.
The Office of Personnel Management (OPM in US), describes telework as “an alternative work arrangement for employees to conduct all or some of their work away from the primary workplace. The work location can be a residence, a telecenter, an office closer to the employee’s residence, or another acceptable location. The telework schedule may be fixed or episodic.”(U.S. Office of Personnel Management, http://www.opm.gov/index.asp, date taken 29.01.2010).
Teleworking is also named telecommuting, flexiwork, sometimes flexiplace, e- commuting, e-work, telework, working at home (WAH), or working from home (WFH).
In general there are three types of telework: full time, part time, and situational. Full time telework means that the employee performs and completes all or almost all duties outside of a traditional office. In this meaning full time teleworking can be named as home-based work. Part time telework means that the employee performs and completes duties outside of a traditional office on a regularly scheduled basis, but not five days per week. For instance, the employee may telework one or more days a week, every two weeks, or several days in a month. Situational telework means that the employee do not telework on a regular basis. This type of telework may happened in case of medical problem, weather or hazardous conditions, that do not allowed employee to get to traditional office in a safe condition and way, sometimes situational telework may be caused by preparing special project which needs high concentration and doesn’t need present of the employee in traditional office.
Ursula Huws, an Associate Fellow of IES, is an established international authority on teleworking, states different approach to types of teleworking.
The five main types of teleworking according to Ursula Huws are:
This form of teleworking means that employee rotates between working on the employer’s premises and working elsewhere. Typically, the secondary worksite is the home, but it may be a telecottage, telecentre or other outpost.
Tele-homeworking means work which is based only in the home and carried out for a single employer, even if the worker does not have formal employee status. This type of teleworking generally involves fairly low-skilled work carried out by people who are tied to the home by the need to care for children or other dependants.
Freelance teleworkers, in contrast to tele-homeworkers, work for a different clients, rather than a single employer.
Mobile teleworking has evolved from more traditional types of work, which can be qualified in groups such as travelling sales representatives, inspectors or maintenance engineers. The new technologies, especially the development of portable equipment such the notebook computer, the mobile telephone, the portable fax machine, have created type of mobility which allowed increase of amount of professional, technical and managerial work that can be carried out ‘on the road’.
The first four categories of teleworking involve activities which employee can carry out in isolation away from the employer’s premises. Relocated back-office is other form of teleworking which takes place on remote office sites. Many big companies have been noticed a rapid growth in specialist centres carrying out activities such as data entry, customer service, airline bookings, telephone banking and mail-order. These centres operate on a subcontracted basis or under the direct control of an employer located at a distance. These type of teleworking face different problems including: lack of promotion prospects, health and safety problems and equal opportunities issues, for instance fairly low-paid work carried out by women (Teleworking: Guidelines for Good Practice, Huws U. Report 329, Institute for Employment Studies, 1997.).
Telework brings a variety of advantages and disadvantages to employees and employers in many different aspects from work environment to health issues. I am going to point and describe, in my opinion, the most important benefits and negatives of telework to both employers and employees.
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