In the opening comments of his presentation, consultant Horace Mitchell said that he would like to consider a broad definition of teleworking to facilitate an understanding of its trade, economic, and labour market implications. He argued that a consideration of definitions would be the best 15 minutes the conference could spend. Much of the debate about teleworking is undermined by a failure to agree on basic definitions as to what constitutes telework in the first place.
Telecommuting - coined, arguably, by Francis Kinsman in the UK or Jack Nilles in the US - refers to the basic notion of individuals doing a conventional job from home instead of on employer's premises. However, there may be self- employed as well as employed telecommuters - the former typically working on contract for one or more employers. Telecommuters may work marginally (one or two days a month), substantively (one or more days per week), or dominantly (three or more days a week) away from a corporate centre. Telecommuters may also work from home, or from telecentres or local offices, rather than commuting to a distant organizational base.
Teleworking also included the redistribution of whole work functions through relocation, either within an employer's enterprise or across the enterprise boundary in the form of contracting out. Mitchell quoted the example of American Express, who moved some of their administrative functions to Brighton from the European mainland. Although not generally acknowledged as teleworking, such an arrangement is made possible by the same technologies and mechanisms that enable teleworking and has a similar organizational impact. Separating jobs geographically from the market geography of an enterprise - by relocation, for example - made other forms of separation such as telecommuting or contracting-out more likely.
Teletrade and Electronic Commerce
The term "teletrade" was coined to describe business done over electronic networks in a 1992/3study produced by Management Technology Associates (MTA) for the UK Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) (1). Teletrade - not telework - would refer to the relationship between a contractor and a former employer whose main connection is electronic. It applies to all forms and aspects of buying and selling over networks. An important aspect is that buyers and sellers become less aware of each other's geographical location. In the future "geography of work", said Mitchell, teletrade will have just as great an impact on jobs as telework, possibly greater.
Mitchell noted that the US government has a well developed and fast moving Electronic Commerce (2) initiative designed to make US companies expert at teletrade techniques. Europe is waiting for similar activities to emerge.
Plenty of Work, Not Many Jobs
On the basis of the jobs themselves, disregarding attitudes and organizational factors, over half of all work in the UK could become telework - yet telework is still the exception rather than the rule, said Mitchell. Relatively few jobs are structured to optimise telework opportunities, although this could change quickly if the Government implemented the findings of the "anti-travel" recommendations of a recent Royal Commission report on transport (3). All goods and services can be promoted, sold, and bought by teletrade methods. A significant proportion of them can be delivered electronically. If the development of the information superhighway stimulates new industries and employment, as envisaged by Delors (4), Bangemann (5), and the DTI (6), the jobs created will almost all be susceptible to teleworking, and all the new products and services to teletrade.
In Mitchell's opinion, the Bangemann report was correct to suggest that the country entering the information society first will reap the greatest rewards. Those who temporised will, in ten years time, face a disastrous decline in both investment and jobs.
Yet, despite the justified optimism of the Bangemann group, care should be taken in interpreting and seeking out the large numbers of new jobs discussed in the report. The same technology that facilitates teleworking and teletrade is also a key factor in other business and employment trends, said Mitchell, notably downsizing and contracting-out by large enterprises, and the increasing role of small firms, the self-employed, and part-time and casual workers.
The new business opportunities created by information superhighways call for creativity, entrepreneurship, imagination, and flexibility, said Mitchell. These typically come easier to smaller than larger firms, who will have an advantage over established enterprises, entrenched in traditional practices. In addition, the small firm - understanding how to "do business over networks" - no longer requires large capital investment and an overseas presence to compete abroad with local suppliers, however large and established.
But even large companies can use information technology to create a more flexible workforce. Excellent communications allow contracted services to be delivered electronically. The administration of employment and contract relationships allows a company to manage say, 10,000 part-time employees for little more than it used to cost to manage 3,000 full-time ones. A self-employed person working at home can now undertake jobs that would previously have required an employed person to commute to the office.
All these developments suggest that while the network economy will generate work opportunities, the jobs are unlikely to be conventional, secure, or permanent. Information superhighways, in other words, may mean more work but less employment. In recent years, said Mitchell, nine out ten new jobs in the UK have emerged in companies with fewer than ten staff, including many sole-traders and self-employed people. Large companies, in fact, have been net losers of jobs. The whole landscape of work was changing, he said, noting that the mid-nineties was witnessing a growth of "micro- enterprises". Computerand communications technology, together with support services such as the "virtual office" (7), were enabling individuals to combine marketing, administration, and "real work". A further feature of the period would be the growth of "virtual companies" where a number of self-employed people work together for common goals without feeling the need for formal business structure. Far from seeing the collapse of work as had been predicted in the seventies (8), we were seeing the end of employment.
If we accept that mass employment is not an appropriate model for the future - a view which runs counter to the rhetoric of job-creation - we must seek to help people make the transition to the new mode, Mitchell argued. Assistance should be given to the self-employed and those setting up very small firms. Training for the long-term unemployed should include training in electronic networking skills and appropriate behavioural skills rather than the conventional task- related skills.
A New Role for Unions
The changes in working practices suggest new roles for unions. Attempting to slow down the transition is not the best way to protect the interests of those involved, said Mitchell. Unions should take advantage of the same technology that supports telework to deliver their services, and to develop and sustain consensus among dispersed communities of "job- mobile" workers. They should become sources of information and expertise in electronic networking and the network economy. To meet the challenge, union leaders, organizers, and opinion-formers would require new skills. They would often have to undergo significant cultural change as a result of the shifting boundaries of the economic landscape.
As firms were getting smaller, for example, the boundaries between employer and employee were breaking down. The time-honoured role of unions as negotiators and representatives was no longer appropriate in a world of micro- enterprises and shifting allegiances. However, there were many services that both worker and employer would need. Reborn as "membership organzations", unions would be in an ideal position to deliver services that would help their members survive in their particular markets - regardless of geographical location of the hiring organization.
Broadening this discussion, Mitchell questioned whether a global information society needs associations specific to geographical locations - national unions, regional councils, or even national teleworking associations. Unions could become organizations for whom working relationships were no longer bounded by geographical or corporate demarcations. Research by Mitchell's own consultancy, Management Technology Associates, indicates that the core methods and techniques that determine individual, organizational, and national success in the "global networked economy" are already available and accessible in the form of "open electronic networking" (OEN) (8), sometimes referred to as "e-mail Plus". This provides an infrastructure for "networking the members", and presents immediate opportunities for unions and other membership based organizations. Its services include:
Mitchell said that the Internet included all these facilities but currently lacked coherent organization and user presentation, unlike the commercial on-line service providers. Unions could use a number of off-the-shelf products to provide services for its members to access the Internet and the information superhighway of the future.
The Key Messages
In concluding, Mitchell said that he felt the main message for the unions was to become proficient in the use and application of OEN as the most readily usable technology of telework, teletrade and networking. It was vital that leaders as well as staff became proficientin its use, since his research indicates that only hands-on experience allows people to understand the realities of the new environment. Although at present only an estimated 2 million UK homes have personal access to a network or on-line service, this number rapidly expanding. An astute union might want to become a natural source for private purchases of on-line services and technology.
Mitchell recognised that unions may be like companies and government departments: often the victims of their own organizational inertia. But he urged them to fight against the popular perception of them as organizations whose main interest is to "take sides" for or against a series of causes. Unions have a lot to contribute in the transition to the networked economy, said Mitchell, and it would be good to see them: