News on 15 September 2000
Speakers at this week’s Telework 2000 conference stressed
the HR and organisational aspects of new ways of working, rather than
the technology. Peter Jones, of BT’s Workstyle Consultancy Group,
said that teleworking changed the ‘psychological contract’ between
worker and organisation. In a rather alarming phrase he talked of ‘re-engineering
the employee’ to cope with some of the problems including information
overload, the need for self-management, maintenance of the work-life balance
and ‘going native’.
BT now has 4,500 people based at home and 40,000 staff with remote access
to its corporate intranet. The company’s approach is to put the employee
at the centre – information flows into their personal pages on the
eBT web site.
Those considering homeworking progress through an online tutorial to assess
their suitability. The package includes a ‘café’ facility
where homeworkers can compare experience. Jones sounded a note of warning
for those companies which do not think teleworking through properly: "If
you’re not supporting the employee fully, you’re not
supporting them at all."
 |
| Left to right: Michael Viertler, Andrew Harrison, Peter Jones and Josina Floor |
His words were echoed by Michael Viertler of Hewlett Packard
who said that teleworkers needed greater support: "You should not
underestimate the psychological impact of teleworking; the isolation and
the effort required to keep in contact. E-mail is great but don’t
forget to use the phone. Teleworkers have a tendency to work excessively
and it requires self-discipline to stop when it’s right to stop."
Organisations are retaining real estate but the office is no longer a
way to structure work said Josina Floor of furniture company Steelcase:
"The office is being re-engineered as a place for interaction, as
a way of re-inforcing corporate identity and values in a world of free
agents."
Just as furniture companies are struggling to find new products for this
new phenomenon so property and design professionals are re-thinking their
offerings. Andrew Harrison of DEGW said that they could no longer look
at space without considering the virtual arena. His firm is seeking EC
funding for a $5.5m research project on teleworking and has begun to map
the congruence of virtual and physical environments. Harrison suggests
that organisations could become disconnected from buildings: "The
building no longer contains the organisation – it is just one of
many intelligent nodes in the network organisation.
"I expect the property sector to be shaken up by these developments.
It’s slow and conservative, in contrast to virtual infrastructure
which can be rapidly re-invented."
Harrison believes new types of place and service will emerge including
City centre facilities on the lines of the Japanese corporate plaza.
