Proceedings of 8th European Assembly on telework (Telework2001)

172The interviewed workers lived on the average 39 kilometres from the <strong>of</strong>fice; men lived farther at50 km vs. 25 km. Workers in northern Italy lived nearer to the <strong>of</strong>fice (24 km), while those in thecentral and southern regions were farther away, on the average 53 and 56 km, respectively.Despite the differences in distance, the time it took to reach the job was substantially the same:the workers living farther away spent about 1h 15min every day getting to the <strong>of</strong>fice, while thosecloser by had an average commuting time <strong>of</strong> 50 minutes. This was probably because the far-awaycommuters used freeways and highways from villages to large cities (faster roads with less traffic),while the others crossed large cities travelling only few kilometres but losing more time in trafficjams. The commuting costs were very high with an average monthly expense <strong>of</strong> around 110Euros.The commuting problem was the most important motivation among the staff to favour teleworking.In fact, the biggest percentage <strong>of</strong> those interviewed wished to reduce their commuting time torecover some <strong>of</strong> the time to spend it on themselves or even more for the benefit <strong>of</strong> the whole family.The daily need to cover long distances, combined with the shift system, did not allow these peopleto easily find a balance between their jobs and personal spheres.Table 1.Reasons for teleworking%More time for family 25.9Reduce commuting time 29Reduce commuting cost 15.9Increase free time 15.6Have higher productivity 5.9Have work flexibility 3.7Have less supervision 1.9Other 2.2The first survey also revealed a glimpse <strong>of</strong> the reverse side <strong>of</strong> the medal: the telework candidates,as suggested even by their colleagues who were strongly against telework in many cases, had fear<strong>of</strong> possible degradation <strong>of</strong> their social dimension, and many saw the risks in the separation fromthe firm environment, which could exclude them from the dynamics and information flow <strong>of</strong> thefirm.