Proceedings of 8th European Assembly on telework (Telework2001)

50According to our forecasts using demand and supply-side data, we come to the conclusion that inthe year 2005 10.8% <strong>of</strong> <strong>European</strong> employees will practice one form <strong>of</strong> telework or another (seeTable 2). In countries like Finland, the Netherlands and Sweden, between one fourth and one third<strong>of</strong> the labour force will be teleworkers.3. The Dimensions <strong>of</strong> Change <strong>of</strong> Work and New Ways <strong>of</strong> WorkingThe concept <strong>of</strong> work according to the understanding <strong>of</strong> social scientists as well as the generalpublic has changed. This change has occurred along the following dimensions [3]:• Working time: This includes the variables• average working time per day, month, year, etc.;• working time distribution across daytime, week, months, etc.;• working time variability (which might be attuned to the demands <strong>of</strong> business, e.g. shiftwork, or to the preferences <strong>of</strong> workers, e.g. flexitime).• Working place: All types <strong>of</strong> telework are examples for changes that concern the spatial/locational organisation <strong>of</strong> work. Tele-cooperation, where the location <strong>of</strong> work stays more or lessthe same but the spatial organisation <strong>of</strong> teamwork and collaboration is geographically extendedover IT networks, is another example.• Type <strong>of</strong> contract: This refers to the contract that underlays the relationship between worker andthe organisation that utilises the work products, e.g. a contract <strong>of</strong> employment or a contractor/client-relationship that is based on self-employment. Differences in the duration <strong>of</strong> employmentcontracts affect average job tenure. Moreover, the contract defines the extent to whichcompensation is based on the input (working time) or the output (work products) <strong>of</strong> work.• Applied skills (work content): The skills workers apply in the production process define thecontent <strong>of</strong> their work (and vice versa). Work content has been hugely affected by the increasing‘informatisation’ <strong>of</strong> work and changes to the variability <strong>of</strong> work tasks and access to work-relateddecision making. The latter is <strong>of</strong>ten discussed under the headings job enrichment, jobenlargement and worker empowerment. Continuous training, to make workers capable <strong>of</strong> takingover more responsibility, is a key element in this respect.These dimensions are not be understood as being mutually exclusive, as multiple relationshipsexist between them. Due to the complexity <strong>of</strong> flexibility developments on hand, it is also notappropriate to try to draw a clear line between ‘traditional’ and ‘new ways <strong>of</strong> working’. Rather, amore useful approach is to think <strong>of</strong> jobs as being classified along a number <strong>of</strong> spectra/dimensions.There is a widespread consensus among researchers that, although change tends to be gradual bynature, two distinct periods can be differentiated with regard to dominating social concepts <strong>of</strong> workin recent times. The first is the post-WWII period <strong>of</strong> relative stability, the second is the period <strong>of</strong>economic restructuring that began in the first half <strong>of</strong> the 1970s, with an additional push in intensityin the 1980s and 1990s enabled by ICTs. Both periods where accompanied by what we want to calla work paradigm, i.e. a consensus about how work had to be ‘properly’ organised and supported bythe socio-political framework. We call these the ‘post WWII work paradigm’ and the ‘21st century