Telework is a work organization regulated by employment contracts or company agreements. Workers perform their work tasks away from the business premises through telecommunication.
Various forms of telework exist already.
Working alternately at home and in the company is alternating telework. The employer offers a workplace to several people and limits their working hours and workspaces by agreement, sets a weekly working time and the duration of the work. The employee does all the work at a home office. Telework places are in the private sphere of the employees.
On-site telework is done within the infrastructure of an external company. Data protection, data security, occupational health and safety, and insurance issues are important here. By eliminating the need for an individual office, teleworkers contribute to cost recovery for the company. Teleworking requires less office space and allows work autonomy. When working in telecentres, employees often work close to residential areas and have access to necessary infrastructure, e.g. fast network connections, fax, etc. The costs of different employers are shared.
Tele villages are housing estates with numerous telework places. A neighborhood office is a cost-efficient form of telework. Employees from different employers work in one office and share office equipment and tools.
Telework increases employee motivation as well as work effectiveness, as they complete part of their working time at home by constantly switching between their workplace in the office and their home, using information technology. Work productivity with telework shows an increase, in contrast to that at the employer's workplace, as there is no longer any disturbance from the company work environment. Social control of employees working at home is reduced. Telecommunication (telephone calls, video conferences) leads to less personal contact.
The beautiful management concept in telework is called management by objectives. It is based on the principle of agreeing on objectives, which results in mutual commitment. Both the goal and the process become more important.
Location-independent working is the motto of teleworking. There is an easy connection between work and family, free time management, better opportunities to use creative phases, the non-existent commute, increased personal responsibility and motivation, or the possibility to work without breaks. You save money and time.
Men want to avoid long traveling to the office. They want a quiet working atmosphere in order to concentrate better. For them, teleworking means an increase in free time for sports and leisure activities. Telework meanwhile is perceived as women-friendly! Women with children often suffer from a double burden of work and family. With the new trend of Telework, however, there is already the possibility for a work-sharing partnership. Working women hope for a better work-life balance. Career, children, and kitchen can live under one roof.
Telework also means different burdens and risks. The danger of social isolation cannot be ruled out. Loads of information piling up on every shoulder without direct contact, less informal interaction, difficulties in separating the professional and private spheres, and the assumed idea of independence can be misleading. It can also result in workaholic tendencies and self-exploitation. If and when you postpone a professional commitment until the evening, there is an unfortunate alteration of appointments and the loss of quality time for yourself. For all mothers, shifting work commitments to early mornings, late evenings and weekends are quite common, and it invariably deprives them of valuable relaxation time.
Successful telework requires the basic conditions to be fulfilled in the areas, viz. suitable office space in the home, necessary infrastructure, office equipment, workstation computers with collaboration software, internet connection with satisfactory data transfer rate, etc. Luckily these are the precise reasons why alternating telework is a particularly good form to appreciate. In the office, there would be the necessary coordination through conferences and face-to-face meetings on specific days. Things don't always go smoothly over the phone or by e-mail. Alternating telework also ranks first in the statistics for the future, because the human being is a social creature after all and will probably better combine work and family life and reorganize life in a positive way.
Telework is a genuinely new opportunity for a large group of people and is here to stay as an integral part of the modern working world. Many people are increasingly working with computers and via telecommunication connections at home, on the road, on the train, or at the customer's site.
By the time the world completely conquers the pandemic, people will have become accustomed to teleworking, and a return to the good old ways of the past would be out of the question. New dimensions of challenges and new trends have set in with the pandemic outbreak, Workers were advised then to work from home offices. Parents too were left with no choice as schools and childcare facilities were out of order. Now the preferences have changed forever.