eWORK 2000 - European Telework Week

New Ways to Work 2000European TeleworkThe answers showed how quantitative models can indeed help show the profitability of telework. It wasshown, as with the previous workshop, that a strategy is also needed in order to design effective teleworkarrangements. However, doing this demands a better understanding of communication patterns inorganisations. It was recommended therefore that a ‘situated approach’ to telework be adopted. Thisworkshop also showed how introducing ICTs and telework can have effects on different organisational levels,with unexpected changes & paradoxes likely to be encountered. More user-friendly techniques, it was pointedout, will increase the willingness to telework.The Telework agendas and concepts workshop noted that there are a number of telework concepts, and thatthese tended to reflect different organisational and public policy agendas. Depending on the concept andagenda therefore, different actors or stakeholders were involved in telework.It was pointed out, for instance, that ‘job creation’ is often a key aim of public telework initiatives. However,two underlying approaches can be detected here, with profound implications for the way in which suchinitiative are approached. Whereas some programmes are aimed at ‘job pull’ – assuming that jobs exist in coreregions and can be carried out virtually at a distance – other programmes focus on ‘business start-up’. Thelatter takes a more entrepreneurial approach, and may ultimately be a more sustainable approach to telework.Six key agendas were identified in the workshop. These included, first, ‘regional planning’. The concept of‘remote working’ was used here to describe the use of telework to bring jobs to outlying regions. The secondagenda identified, ‘urban planning’, was particularly bound up with the concepts of ‘telecommuting’ and‘telecentres’, especially where these were used to manage transport growth. The third agenda, ‘technologicaland organisational innovation’, signaled the use of IT in innovative business processes and services, as found,for instance, with call centres and virtual teams. ‘Business start-ups and entrepreneurship’ was the fourthagenda. Something high on the Japanese telework agenda, here telework is most closely associated with SOHOconcepts, with IT and the home providing the basic infrastructure for new business initiatives. The fifthagenda reflects the ‘life-style’ needs of individuals in managing their careers, families and other interests.Here, ‘flexible working’ was used to describe arrangements which advanced this agenda. Finally, ‘workplacedesign and mobile work’ was used to capture the agenda bound up with ‘alternative officing’, ‘m-work’ and soon.The fourth International Workshop ended with business conference, attended by over 200 people.Contributions came from leading business and opinion leaders, as well as from the Japanese Minister ofLabour. A key-note address, outlining the American experience of telework, was given by Gil Gordon.The 2000 Telework workshop takes place Stockholm. See www.Telework2000.nu for more details.- 124 -