Teleworking 'over hyped' as a route to better work-life balance.

11 September 2006

AMSTERDAM—Teleworking has been 'over hyped' as a route to better work-life balance.

New research by the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) today reveals that the phenomenon of teleworking has been over exaggerated.

According to the CIPD survey, teleworking is unlikely ever to be a prospect for the majority of workers, and may be overshadowing far more effective means of improving work-life balance.

Many studies on teleworking artificially swell the numbers of teleworkers by including "white van men" - tradesmen and other self-employed people who happen to use a computer and telephone as at least part of their work, reports the CIPD.

CIPD Chief Economist John Philpott, says that "many people may have done the odd days work from home over the summer to help manage the childcare conundrum, but as the schools go back, the majority of the summer homeworkers are likely to trudge back into the office."

Philpott says that despite the advantages of telework being frequently extolled, it is important not to hype the potential for growth in this kind of flexible work pattern.

"The likelihood is that any major breakthrough on flexible working will, for most people, take the form of reduced hours, flexi-time or changes in shift patterns - all good for work life balance but largely developments in fairly mundane existing approaches to managing working time rather than a step toward an entirely new world of work," says Philpott.

"The typical full-time teleworker is far more likely to be a mature male, white van driving, self-employed jobbing plumber or bricklayer than, as commonly portrayed, a techno savvy post-modern office worker," he says.

The report - Teleworking: trends and prospects - highlights the fact that only 4 per cent of UK employees are full time teleworkers as defined by the Office for National Statistics.

[Copyright Expatica news 2006]