Abstract

(summary and aims)

 

  • Often and usually considerations how and whether teleworking (TW) should be introduced to a company are based on a rather static view. Existing jobs and job profiles are treated as given facts . A first selection is made depending on the attitudes and skills of the current holder of a job. Other individual aims are considered as well. If gaps are noticed between demanded skills and the current job profile it is tried to overcome them by additional training and by providing special TW-oriented courses. A decomposition of the job profile into subtasks and a separate discussion which of them are suitable for TW a priori and which are not, very often is not regarded as necessary. That is the common way how TW is being introduced currently and it also explains, why in particular employers are reluctant to take advantage of TW. Following this (naïve) approach they simply do not see and can not detect possible advantages of TW from their point of view.

    We will discuss and propose a different approach which can be regarded as a dynamic strategy. We recommend a start from scratch by performing a business process redesign first.

    Such a Business Reengineering (BR) however should follow and obey an additional condition and target: reorganize workflow and tasks in such a way, that parts of it and subtasks are optimal suited for the specific needs of a TW-profile. To some extent this also results in a redistribution of both, workload and the tasks for individual employees. As a further result it will modify the individual job profiles too.

    A major consequence also is that the overall IT based flow of information and the company’s global communication policy for units and/or employees is subject to changes as soon TW is considered as an accepted way of working. It underlines that not only those who will work TW-based are affected, but also those employees who remain resident within their company as they did before.

    TW is much more than allowing people to stay at home using information and communications technology (ICT), in which work is carried out independent of location - particularly at a location other than the traditional workplace. TW has consequences to all other units of a company . TW will imply a new assignment of modified job profiles to employees based on BR.

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    Last change: 1414/12/97