The following article is reprinted with permission from the April '95 issue of "Flexibility" published by the Home Office Partnership in Cambridge, United Kingdom.
A new survey of teleworking across Europe calculates that Europe has 1.25 million teleworkers, and some 5% of European establishments actively practise telework. These results are based on an extensive survey of teleworking practice in the five largest countries in the European Union (UK, Germany, France, Italy and Spain).
The working definition of teleworking for purposes of the survey covered the three main forms of teleworking:
1. near full-time home-based teleworking or "telehomework";
2. "alternating telework" such as working in a conventional office and spending at least one full day per week working at home; and
3. work in a telework centre specially set up in the vicinity of the workers' home.
In each case teleworking is supported by the use of new information and communication technology.
As well as a general population survey, Empirica conducted a "decision maker survey". This questioned senior employees of establishments who make decisions about how work is organized. This was a very extensive survey with 500 decision makers per country interviewed.
Among the results of the survey are the following findings:
- Europe currently has 1.25 million teleworkers;
- 5% of European organizations practise telework;
- nearly half of Europe's teleworkers are in the UK;
- large sections of the European population have not heard of telework. The French and British are notable exceptions:
- over 40% of Europeans are interested in taking up teleworking themselves -- a major increase over Empirica's 1985 findings;
- decision makers in Europe are decidedly conservative in their views about occupations suitable for telework. Managers in Britain are more up-to-date in this respect than those elsewhere in Europe;
- lack of knowledge as to how to implement telework now heads the list of obstacles seen by managers; and
- over 10 million people could become teleworkers in Europe.
The survey was conducted by German analysts Empirica as part of the TELDET project. TELDET stands for Telework Development and Trends: a compilation of information on telework -- case studies and trend analysis. The project is funded by the European Commission. Empirica's partners in the project are IDATE of France, Inmark from Spain, Innova from Italy and Work Research Centre from Ireland, with contributions from Wierda, Overmars and Partners of the Netherlands and the Finnish Ministry of Labour.
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