by: Kiran Mirchandani
Teleworkers are salaried employees who spend some or all of their regular work-weeks working at home instead of the central office. This research project was initiated in mid-1993 and focused on how teleworkers define and manage the division between their "work" and "nonwork" activities when they do both in the same physical space of the home. Thirty female and twenty male teleworkers were interviewed; all respondents were salaried employees and worked in a wide variety of occupations. Individuals from eighteen different companies (in both the public and the private sector) were interviewed.
Many teleworkers make sharp divisions between their work and nonwork activities. They maintain separate workspaces within the home and follow regular work schedules. Although workers at home are physically removed from the office environment, they work in a way that largely reproduces the culture of that environment. Traditional organizational culture is based on the strict separation between work and nonwork concerns. Being "professional" often necessitates an all encompassing commitment to paid work activities and a secondary, if any, commitment to family responsibilities.
Teleworkers perceive the opportunity to work at home as a privilege they have been granted. Also, work at home is often treated by friends, colleagues and the popular media as leisure rather than work. Within this context, teleworkers need to constantly legitimize the work arrangement, which they do by reinforcing traditional organizational expectations of the separation of work and nonwork. This is despite the fact that they recognize the co-dependance of these two spheres.
While reinforcing traditional organizational culture in this way, teleworkers also pose a fundamental challenge to organizations. This challenge originates in their experiences that the best work is carried out in the private sphere of the home. The office is, on a number of dimensions, an inappropriate place for good work to be done. In this way, teleworkers illuminate the many inconsistencies between the way in which work is now organized and the structure necessary to do good work.
I argue that realizing the benefits of the teleworkers' challenge to the current structure of work will depend on the guided entrenchment of telework into organizations. Specifically, there are five policy implications arising from this research which would facilitate the successful implementation of telework programs in organizations.
Most of the teleworkers interviewed have some form of a written contract, although for a few the work arrangement is a verbal agreement between themselves and their supervisors. Even amongst those with contracts, however, there are vast differences in what their contracts include, and which levels of the organization they involve. For example one telework contract was a negotiation that involved the teleworker, the supervisor, the union and the President of the company. For another, the contract was a letter in the employee file, with a signature of approval by the manager. Telework contracts also differ greatly in terms of what they include. For a few teleworkers, a comprehensive contract is used including the days and times work is to be done at home, the job content and how it is to be evaluated, the equipment to be provided, the insurance coverage, and the safety standards to be maintained in the home. Some contracts include a clause that identifies telework as a voluntary arrangement; employees have the option to return to the central office at any time.
Teleworkers with such comprehensive contracts work for organizations that have devoted some resources to research on telework and development of company wide policy on the work arrangement. Several teleworkers report that they themselves did much of the research in developing business plans outlining the benefits of telework. This research work is often unrecognized, and indicative of the fact that telework is regarded largely as a privilege given to the employee. A majority of the unionized employees said that they unions played little or no role in the development of their telework contracts. This suggests the need for organizations to recognize the "telework research" currently being done by pioneering teleworkers. The development of standardized contracts would ensure a basic level of employee protection and allow for the employee's telework performance to be measured against certain collaboratively predetermined yardsticks. The development of telework programs and contracts should be seen as an organizational, rather than an "unpaid" employee responsibility.
Just as there is little standardization of telework contracts there are also vast differences amongst the sample of teleworkers in the amount of equipment and infrastructure support with which they are provided while they work at home. Almost all teleworkers cover part of their work costs themselves, especially for furniture and maintenance (such as electricity bills). None of the teleworkers was compensated for the fact that part of their home is dedicated to organizational activities. In some cases, teleworkers have submitted tax claims but several report that the compensation they receive is extremely small. Often teleworkers also pay for their own phone lines.
Many employers do provide teleworkers with computers, although in some cased , this is surplus equipment that hinders teleworkers' ability to work effectively. When organizations do provide equipment, however, this is often done in a haphazard manner. One teleworker reported that obtaining the right equipment was "an uphill battle". Another reported that her employer had agreed to pay for office equipment, but "after a couple of months, it seems like they forgot [about] it."
Some organizations, however, do assume responsibility for providing teleworkers with an appropriately equipped home office. By and large, however, teleworkers are reluctant to lobby their employers to make such provisions. This is largely because teleworkers are keen not to jeopardize telework programs, and are afraid that employers may perceive telework as a "cost". Employers must take organizational responsibility for workers at home by providing them with the equipment and infrastructure to do their work effectively.
Teleworkers perceive the opportunity to work at home as a highly desirable and often precarious arrangement which restricts them from making demands within the organization. Teleworkers are also keenly aware of the fact that they are highly productive and valuable employees, and provide great benefit to their employers. While teleworkers recognize their own organizational value, they note that they often do not receive recognition form peers, supervisors, and the organization as a whole. They perceive telework as a privilege so they do not demand organizational recognition of their work. Several teleworkers feel that more should be done to acknowledge that they are an integral part of the organization. Future policy on telework should stress that telework is a valuable "fabric" of many organizations and that teleworkers are organizationally valuable rather than privileged employees.
Part of the reason that teleworkers perceive the work arrangement as a privilege despite their organizational contributions is the fact that telework is not, as yet, entrenched in the cultures of most organizations. As yet, many decisions about telework are made by employees' direct supervisors, and there are no formal mechanisms in place to ensure that these decisions are made fairly. Decisions about individual telework arrangements need to be made by teleworkers, their supervisors and their unions, but mechanisms need to be put in place to ensure that these decisions are made after consideration of all the relevant information. In addition, grievance procedures need to be established for teleworkers who may have been unfairly denied the opportunity to telework (or may have been forced into telework).
This study suggests that there is a need for the continual monitoring of the development of telework in Canada. It is necessary to track the growth of telework, as well as the contractual arrangements under which employees work at home. Telework can potentially be a move towards unrealistic work expectations and the increased contracting out of work. Telework can also pose a fundamental challenge to organizational cultures and provide the vehicle through which individuals can engender more egalitarian ways of working. Policy makers must play an active role in guiding the continued entrenchment of telework programs in organizations, and in this manner, contribute to the determination of the future influence of telework.
CONTACT:
Kiran Mirchandani
Department of Sociology
St. Mary's University
Halifax, Nova Scotia B3H 3C3
e-mail: kmirchan@shark.stmarys.ca
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