The following is a summary of a Swedish Report entitled: "20 Seconds to Work: Home-Based Telework". This summary was prepared by Andy Lake, Editor of Flexibility -- Business Innovation and Human Resources Management and is reprinted with permission of the publisher, The Home Office Partnership, United Kingdom.
One feels that if telework can take off anywhere, it would be in Sweden. A sophisticated, developed economy, an advanced telecommunications infrastructure built to cope with remote communities, and a high level of personal computer ownership.
In 1885, Sweden had the highest number of telephones in the world, in absolute terms, not only per capita. It now retains a very strong telecoms sector, and one of the most deregulated telecoms markets in Europe.
Unusually, Sweden is not only one of the most unionized countries in Europe (85% affiliation) but the union movement has a positive attitude towards teleworking. This is unlike its counterparts in other countries, which have tended to equate teleworking with exploitative piece-work home-working.
Also noted is that Sweden has a high rate of employed women, to whom home-based teleworking may be more particularly attractive. It might also be added that it has a reputation for having a high ratio of family-friendly men, who might be more willing to seek a better integration of home and working life.
Playing the numbers games with teleworking is always tricky. The Teldok Report on Swedish experiences of home-based teleworking estimates that 150,000 - 200,000 (6-9% of white collar employees and 4-6% of all employees) are working on average at least one day per week from home.
The report has devoted over half of the analysis to reporting on the experiences of individual teleworkers, an approach the author justifies as follows:
"Telework is very much a personal event, where certain experiences can be generalized and a few common conclusions drawn, but where in the end it is the individual experience that is decisive."
This could, however, be said of all kinds of work experience. Some like it, some do not. But most people have some experience of traditional workplace work. The value of the anecdotal approach and interviews is greater when dealing with novel or minority occupations and experiences, that those unfamiliar with the phenomena may find hard to identify with unless "brought to life" in this way.
However, it is also the author's hope that this work will add to the currently fragmented knowledge about teleworking, as a step towards the development of a more structured knowledge of the field.
The later chapters of the report examine Swedish teleworking in a European context, the future of work, management issues and employee incentives. Probably the best of these chapters is on the economics of teleworking, examining the hopes and realities of savings for both companies and employees. It ends by suggesting that one should not start by looking for savings, but ask instead what increases in productivity and savings in space are needed to justify the cost of teleworking employees?
This is a useful report, recognizing the essential plurality of teleworking, and presents a series of sensitive portraits of teleworking in practices, providing case studies reflecting a wide range of experience.
CONTACT:
Andy Lake
Editor, Flexibility
e-mail: hop@hop.co.uk
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