Teleworking - Had a good day in the front room dear?

Figures from a major European report will next month show that the number of teleworkers in Europe is about to hit 10 million.

The study, based on the European Commission’s Electronic Commerce and Telework Trends in Europe (Ecatt) research initiative, also says 10.8 per cent of the European workforce will be involved in some form of teleworking by 2005.

Closer to home, figures released in July by the government’s Office of National Statistics show that the number of homeworkers in Britain has grown by 19 per cent on last year’s figure.

In 1999 around 1.2 million people worked from home for one day a week. The figure now stands at 1.5 million.

The significance of this growth will be debated this month at the ‘Telework 2000’ conference in London, where Peter Johnston, head of the European Commission unit responsible for Ecatt, will be speaking alongside companies that have introduced homeworking initiatives.

One thing is for sure. After a long gestation period stretching back as far as the early 1980s when the personal computer was born, teleworking has finally arrived.

Dave Cordy, a consultant in the workstyle consultancy group at BT – one of the companies that will be discussing its experiences at the conference next week – argues there are strong economic imperatives behind the trend: ‘People and accommodation costs are key drivers and businesses are working at how they can reduce both’. He argues that teleworking can help contain corporate growth, offers greater flexibility, increased productivity and gives businesses a tool to barter for and retain staff.

But businesses considering taking the plunge would do well to consider a variety of problems that working at home has raised – not least concerns over isolation. Managers must also tackle key issues such as health and safety and whether security is adequate.

For example, any equipment used by an employee in the course of their work has to be deemed safe by their employer and subjected to regular inspections and checks. Employers with more than five staff have a legal responsibility to carry out a health and safety risk assessment on a teleworker’s home office.

Christine Critchley, senior consultant with independent consultancy System Concepts, says one of the biggest problems is that people often don’t have the skills to set up a workstation. They use a laptop at home when they should be using a desktop PC. ‘If someone is using a laptop incorrectly there is a tremendous risk of head and neck strain,’ she says.

She advises that companies provide staff with fully adjustable chairs to eliminate the risk of back strain. Meanwhile, employees who spend a large amount of time in the home office face the risk of being excluded from important health and safety training. And that’s to say nothing of ‘overloaded adaptor plugs’.

Other issues include insurance where separate cover is required for work equipment, although Cordy says standard home insurance premiums could lower since teleworkers tend to be in the house throughout the day. But using part of a house for work can incur business taxes.

Overcoming isolation, says Critchley, is down to good management and making sure the member of staff has the right qualities to work from home. ‘Isolation is a potential risk, but it can be overcome through technology, such as use of e-mail and the phone, to keep in contact.’

Critchley and Cordy agree that a way around this is to arrange regular sales conference-style meetings that allow staff a chance to discuss issues. They also recommend finding a balance between time spent working at home and time spent in the office.

Teleworking also brings its own stress points – with screaming children, interruptions from friends and family during work hours, and not knowing when to call it a day and actually stop working, at the head of the list.

But perhaps one of the biggest changes teleworking brings is in the role of the facilities manager who suddenly has to cope with the sporadic way that teleworkers use the workplace. According to Cordy, this is starting to happen now and first to go is the old rule that work should be building focused. ‘The services facilities managers provide will change. For example postal delivery will change. At BT we now have a virtual post box.’

The potential exists for the number of people using a building to actually increase through teleworking. Buildings will become 24-hour facilities and hot-desking and shared resources will add to the pressure on buildings and their managers. ‘Facilities managers’ skills will have to change,’ says Cordy. ‘Their relationship with the employee will become a dispersed one.’

Cordy says that facilities managers will face a more varied role forged by the need to support a different range of work styles: ‘Work is changing, office space requirements are changing, therefore the facilities manager needs to adapt to the change.’