BUSINESS
E-working fails to make inroads: experts
18-12-2002
by John Cradden
There is a persistent reluctance among Irish businesses to embrace e-working, despite the potential benefits, according to experts in the sector.
There was no growth in the numbers of people teleworking in Ireland the past year, according to a recent MRBI survey that was presented at Telework Ireland's recent annual conference in Kilkenny last month.
Liam Breslin of Telework Ireland, a group that promotes e-working, says that this is largely because employees feel less secure in their jobs at the moment, and therefore feel less able to approach employers about the possibility of exploring teleworking options.
Another factor is likely to be managerial reluctance and the lack of managerial skills required to oversee a transition to large numbers of employees availing of home working arrangements, added Margaret Green, manager of Flexwork, an EU funded project designed to promote teleworking to the SME sector. "Its certainly not due to lack of government commitment," she said. "The main reason is managers' reluctance to relinquish control."
However, a new venture called Space2work that plans to open the first of three sophisticated e-work centres around Dublin may make teleworking arrangements more attractive to larger employers. The idea is to offer large organisations space at these centres for workers based outside the city who otherwise face long delays in traffic to reach city centre offices.
According to its director, Jonathan Dempsey, Space2work has spoken to organisations about finance and has options on premises. The company plans to begin offering the service by the second quarter of 2003.
At the moment, the company is conducting a large-scale survey of commuters to help them to finalise the facilities that will be made available and the locations of the centres. Dempsey also hopes that the survey will convince sceptics involved in traditional teleworking circles who believe the idea will not work.
Dempsey agrees that Irish firms have been slow to take on board the traditional home teleworking model, but their concerns are valid, he said. "Large organisations have a view that large scale home working will cause large scale difficulties."
One such issue the lack of confidence in current management policies that will ensure a smooth transition to teleworking. Companies need to work to develop a system of management by outcome, as opposed to management by task, he said. "In the office you can see what your employees are doing and supervise them. Working remotely, however, requires a plan and an expectation."
Other concerns include health and safety, insurance and even IT. "One large company I spoke to was concerned about the cost of servicing IT at home."
Telework Ireland's Breslin noted that Space2Work scheme, which based loosely on the idea of telecottages that originated in Scandinavia, could well succeed because the model is much more sophisticated. In addition, declining productivity and the deteriorating quality of life for employees is forcing the issue higher up the business agenda. "You only have look out the window at the traffic to know that it has the potential to work."
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