eWORK 2000 - European Telework Week

More documents

Recommendations

Info

New Ways to Work 2000European Telework5.6 GermanySummaryTelework in Germany is booming. More and more organisations have identified telework as a new way ofworking providing advantages and benefits to all parties concerned and have started to introduce it. The sameholds true for individuals who see teleworking as an option to enter into the labour market as freelancers froma home-base in their SOHOs.As revealed by the ECaTT project (“Electronic Commerce and Telework Trends in Europe. BenchmarkingProgress on New Ways of Work and Electronic Commerce”) led by empirica in 1999 and 2000, Germany hasexperienced by far the highest growth rates in teleworking over the past five years in Europe. The averageannual increase in numbers of teleworkers was 34% compared to a European average of 17% 25 . Today, thecountry with most teleworkers in Europe is Germany (more than 2 million out of around 10 million for thewhole of the EU). Most of these are regular teleworkers. Only a fourth of the German teleworkers aresupplementary teleworkers, i.e. those only teleworking occasionally (for further details cf. www.ecatt.com).Despite these encouraging figures one has to recognise that in relative terms Germany is located in theEuropean midfield and exactly on the European average with respect to the share of teleworkers in the totalworkforce. 6% of the German employees are teleworkers. Countries like Finland, Sweden, Denmark or theNetherlands reach much higher relative figures with Finland leading the field in Europe with 17% of theworkforce already teleworking. On the opposite side are countries like Spain, Italy and France lagging behindwith telework penetration rates of only 2.8%, 3.6% and 2.9% (empirica: ECaTT 1999).The majority of all teleworkers in Germany as in Europe in general encompasses workers with high or evenvery high qualifications, special professional training and managerial responsibility. While only 50% (45% inEurope) of the “normal” workers have managerial responsibility in their work, this figure climbs up to 67%(75% in Europe) among those teleworking. Most German teleworkers are employees. However, there aresignificantly more self-employed workers among the teleworkers (31% in Germany, 25% in Europe) thanamong the rest of the workforce (16% in Germany, 17% in Europe). Remarkably and in contrast to the“normal” working life, 76% of the German teleworkers (75% in Europe) are male and only 24% (25% inEurope) female.In the vast number of teleworking schemes in Germany teleworking is regulated by company or frameworkagreements between employers and works councils or trade unions. In the meantime numerous frameworkagreements on teleworking have been developed in Germany. Those best recognised in public include thecollective agreement developed jointly by Deutsche Telekom and DPG (Deutsche Postgewerkschaft) and thecompany agreements from IBM and LVM (insurance company) which these developed with their workscouncils. Most of these agreements have been made public which very much eased the job of many othercompanies interested in setting up teleworking to develop comparable agreements for themselves. Companiesinterested in telework implementation can easily use and adapt these to their specific requirements. All this haspositively contributed to the fact that telework is no longer seen as something exotic and its implementation nolonger as a far too complex and difficult task which is more than the companies are be able to cope with or canonly be dealt with supported by expensive external support from consultants. Companies in Germany nowdare starting telework implementation on their own.In addition, a large number of guides to teleworking exist, which address themselves to different target groupsor are of a more general nature. A general guide is being distributed by the Federal Ministry of Economy and25The European average was calculated on the basis of data from the projects TELDET (for 1994) and ECaTT (for 1999) and only include France,Germany, Italy, Spain and the UK for which data for both points in time is available.- 68 -
New Ways to Work 2000European TeleworkTechnology (BMWi), others by Federal state governments. The RKW (Rationalisierungs- undInnovationszentrum der Deutschen Wirtschaft e.V.) has published a guide addressed to top managers anddecision makers in SMEs to motivate these to start teleworking themselves. The thinking behind is that oncethey seen and felt the advantages and benefits of teleworking themselves, they will be much more open andwilling to also introduce telework on a company-wide base. Also many guides are published in book formatand can be purchased from bookshops. Special guides relating to ergonomics and health and safety at theworkplace have also been developed. The most popular one, which has been and still is widely distributed, isthe one published by the Bundesanstalt für Arbeitsschutz und Arbeitsmedizin in Berlin. OnForTe is anotherinteresting development in Germany. OnForTe is a call centre-based pilot scheme set up in Germany andwhich is supported by the Federal Ministry of Education and Science, Deutsche Telekom and the trade unionsIG Metall and Deutsche Postgewerkschaft. OnForTe is addressed to and provides the services to employeesactually teleworking and those interested in doing so. All these activities seem to have positively contributed tothe positive development of telework over the past years although it is impossible to establish a direct causallink.Recent relevant technology developments, new servicesLiberalisation in the telecommunications sector in Germany has led to drastic price reductions which aredefinitely facilitating moves to teleworking by organisations and individuals. Further facilitating factorsinclude the discounts given by telecommunications service and network providers to users for certain types ofapplications (e.g. Aktiv plus by Deutsche Telekom) or larger business customers. Flatrates for internet use areslowly penetrating the German market. First offers are now available from ARCOR, Mobilcom and DeutscheTelekom as well as a smaller number of smaller providers.Specific developments in the network services sector like the Deutsche Telekom network service calledCENTREX provide a voice communication functionality which is very supportive to teleworking andsatisfying a number of demands from teleworkers. With this service teleworkers at decentralised workplacescan use the same telephone and PABX functions which they are used to in the headquarters. A teleworkingscheme where this service has been implemented and is used successfully is the one of SIGNAL IDUNA inDortmund.Some organisations (e.g. the insurance company Barmenia in Wuppertal) are using network computers(Windows Based Terminals, WBT, so called “thin clients”) in their teleworking schemes. These appear to be amore cost-effective alternative to PCs for teleworking purposes. In addition work for software and hardwaremaintenance and updating is significantly eased since this can now take place centrally. Developments in thisarea are likely to make teleworking even more attractive especially in larger organisations which aim at somehundred telework workplaces.Imaging systems have also achieved a stage of development which make them usable in teleworkingarrangements over public networks like ISDN. Teleworking schemes like the one of Deutscher Herold in Bonnhave demonstrated their feasibility and usability for teleworking. As this technology supports the paperlessexecution of work over networks, we can expect that its further development will also act as a facilitator totelework in the future.- 69 -
Page 1 and 2:
eWORK 2000Status Report onNew Ways
Page 3 and 4:
New Ways to Work 2000European Telew
Page 5 and 6:
Page 7 and 8:
Page 9 and 10:
Page 11 and 12:
Page 13 and 14:
Page 15 and 16:
Page 17 and 18: New Ways to Work 2000European Telew
Page 67: New Ways to Work 2000European Telew
Page 119 and 120:
Page 121 and 122:
Page 123 and 124:
Page 125 and 126:
Page 127 and 128:
Page 129 and 130:
Page 131 and 132:
Page 133 and 134:
Page 135 and 136:
Page 137 and 138:
Page 139 and 140:
Page 141 and 142:
Page 143 and 144:
Page 145 and 146:
Page 147 and 148:
Page 149 and 150:
Page 151 and 152:
Page 153 and 154:
Page 155 and 156:
Page 157 and 158:
Page 159 and 160:
Page 161 and 162:
Page 163 and 164:
Page 165 and 166:
Page 167 and 168:
Page 169 and 170:
Page 171 and 172:
Page 173 and 174:
Page 175 and 176:
Page 177 and 178:
Page 179 and 180:
Page 181 and 182:
Page 183 and 184:
Page 185 and 186:
Page 187 and 188:
Page 189 and 190:
Page 191 and 192:
Page 193 and 194:
Page 195 and 196:
Page 197 and 198:
Page 199 and 200:
Page 201 and 202:
Page 203 and 204:
Page 205 and 206:
Page 207 and 208:
Page 209 and 210:
show all

eWORK 2000 - European Telework Week

Create successful ePaper yourself

Delete template?

Save as template?