New Technology, Work and Employment 15:1

ISSN 0268-1072

Teleworking: benefits and

pitfalls as perceived by
professionals and managers
Yehuda Baruch
This study explores how teleworking is perceived by
employees and highlights its possible benefits and pitfalls.
Interviews with sixty-two teleworkers in five UK organis-
ations provide a comprehensive view on this mode of work.
In particular the study examines teleworking impact on effec-
tiveness, quality of working life, and family life.

Teleworking, we are told, is part of the new world of work emerging around us.
New forms of work consideration, most notably the virtual organisation, depend on
an effective use of information technology (IT). IT is the chief but not the only force
bringing about transformation to jobs and ways of organising work for greater flexi-
bility, responsiveness, and effectiveness. Traditional modes of control are no longer
necessary for effective management of people, and current developments in tech-
nology make remote work feasible. However, in commentaries on the phenomenon
it is rarely considered what may be the impact on people’s attitudes to work, per-
formance, stress, and the home-work interface. This research examines these and
related questions, to enable us to have realistic understanding of the opportunities
versus the threats and limitations it poses. In contrast to most existing literature on
teleworking which have focussed on the employer’s point of view, this study targeted
individual employees.

The expansion of teleworking

Teleworking first came into usage in its present context to indicate work remote from
the office. In most cases, and in all the cases under the empirical study reported in
this article, teleworking is done from home, and thus sometimes titled ‘home-
working’. Home-working is not a new phenomenon. In the pre-industrial era large
numbers of people worked mainly at or close to home, for example in craft work-
shops and on local land. The industrial revolution took people away from home to
centralised work-places—factories and offices. Today we find the reverse trend,
people once again practising their skills and occupations from their domicile environ-

❒ Yehuda Baruch is Senior Lecturer, School of Management, University of East Anglia.

 Blackwell Publishers Ltd. 2000, 108 Cowley Road, Oxford OX4 1JF, UK and 350 Main St., Malden, MA 02148, USA.

34 New Technology, Work and Employment

ment, either as outsourced or freelance suppliers of goods and services to businesses,
or as employees working via electronic linkages for a remote organisation.
Teleworking uses electronic media as its main ‘tool’. This novel way of transferring
bits rather than physical material characterise the modern work environment
(Mitchell, 1995; Negroponte, 1995). Other cases of home-working might be the old-
fashioned ‘sweatshop’ manufacturing such as those mentioned by Hakim (1987) or
Boris and Prugl (1996). Hakim claims that only a small fraction of the so-called home-
workers are using high-technology equipment such as computers. In contrast, the
present study emphasises the effects of new technology on teleworking as a flexible
working programme (see also Mueller, 1992). There is a variety of definitions to
teleworking. Indeed, Qvortrup (1998) refers to the problems and ambiguity of the
definitions. Part of the problem refers to the title used, be it teleworking, telecommut-
ing, or homeworking (Felstead, 1996).
Qvortrup echoed Huws, Korte, and Robinson (1990) who warn against conducting
comparisons based on different base definition. The example he provides shows how,
using different surveys within the same country (UK), the numbers varied consider-
ably from 110,000 to 1,224,000 in 1992/1994 (Qvortrup 1998, p. 29). Only two years
later, the IDS 616 (1996) claims that the actual number for the same population is
between half a million and 1.7 million, depending on the precise definition used. Such
definitions can vary by the threshold of time spent at home (compared to time at
the employer premises) which distinguish between teleworkers and non-teleworkers.
Does teleworking mean only cases where a person spends all his/her working time
at home? More than half the time? At least one/two days a week? Another question
is whether self-employed people should be regarded as part of the teleworking popu-
lation. There can be also a distinction between people working from home, from
small local centres (known as ‘tele-cottages’), and mobile workers.
In this article the definition adopted is that of the EC (1994) and Korte and Wynne
(1996). According to these approaches, teleworking constitutes at least three main
elements: (a) location of the workplace, which means it is partially or fully inde-
pendent from the location of the employer, contractor, client etc.; (b) use of infor-
mation technology (IT), mainly personal computers, e-mail, faxes and telephones;
and (c) organisational form and communication link to the organisation. The last one
may consist of several modes—home based, mobile working, and telework centres.
Technology development enables teleworking to be practised, and serves to widen
work opportunities and options, although other factors concerned with people orien-
tations and organisational cultures are as crucial (Baruch and Nicholson, 1997). The
continued spread of the teleworking mode is reflected in both academic studies and
practitioners reports (see for example IDS 551, 1994, IDS 616, 1996, the MITEL Report
1998). Further technological innovations permit more people in more professions and
occupations to join in. Steinle (1988) argues that about two-thirds of all jobs will
be available for teleworking. The availability of telecommunication infrastructure is
responsible to a variety in the application of home-working across the globe (see
EIRR, 1996 for European perspectives). One of the more discussed but less developed
is the virtual organisation (cf. Davidow and Malone, 1992; Chesbrough and Teece
1996). People from remote places can be part of, or work for organisations located
elsewhere or nowhere.
Though being of focal interest, the scale of teleworking has not yet been adopted
by most of the population, as has been predicted by Toffler (1981) and subsequently
by Handy (1984), but it is spreading steadily. Olson and Primps (1984) suggested
that more than 50 per cent of office work could be conducted from people’s homes,
and Rothwell (1989) claimed that by 1995 about 50 per cent of the employees and
43 per cent of self-employed could work from home, through innovative arrange-
ments made possible by IT developments. The factual picture is far below expec-
tations. Although there is no clear answer concerning the number of employees
engaged in teleworking, single focussed evidence (Brewster, Hegewisch and Mayne,
1994) showed that less than 1 per cent of employers are using teleworking in the
EC. This implies there are other hindrances which prevent teleworking developing

 Blackwell Publishers Ltd. 2000. Teleworking 35

to its full potential. Yet most writing on teleworking emphasises the benefits and
advantages for both employers and employees (cf. Mahfood, 1992).
The study of the teleworking phenomenon is fairly new, but of increasing interest
to scholars (Hamilton 1987, Licht 1988) both in theoretical discussions (eg. Goodrich,
1990; Metzger and Von Glinow, 1988; Skyrme 1994) and empirical research (Yap and
Tng, 1990; Huws, 1993; Korte and Wynne 1996). Most of the studies have implicitly
taken an employer perspective (Huws, 1993; Mahfood, 1992; Caudron, 1992), some
are concerned with possible improvements in the worker effectiveness (Di Martino
and Wirth, 1990) or the implications for legislation (Vega-Ruiz, 1992; Smith and
Baruch, 2000). The population under study is another issue. Some reported cases
focused at the lower level of the labour market (eg. Hamblin 1995; Huws et al. 1996).
However, teleworking should be directed towards a creative use of human resources
and highly qualified personnel and it seems that professional teleworkers are
under-studied.
There are various reasons for employers to introduce or extend teleworking, but
cost-effectiveness serves as the main impetus, and reduction of overhead costs seems
to be a primary motivation. In fact, in some aspects, teleworking just shifts certain
costs onto the employee (use of space, electricity and gas bills, etc.). Teleworking
also enlarges the employer’s labour market. More people can be hired, such as single
parents, second earner (usually mothers) with young children, or disabled people
who previously would have been unavailable for employment. The benefit of flexi-
bility in the scheduling and conduct of work is also a claimed benefit to both the
employer and the employee, who can save the cost, time and inconvenience of com-
muting to a place of work. The well-being of employees may thus be another motive
for extension of teleworking.
In terms of employer incentives for opting to introduce teleworking, Huws (1992)
found indications for improved productivity, reliability and work quality among tele-
workers (see also Salomon and Shamir 1985). They were perceived as more loyal,
less likely to avoid work (ie. be ‘absent’ from home during work time) and had lower
tendency to change employer. Teleworkers are rarely absent for illness: many cases
that would prevent an employee under conventional contracts from getting to work
will not stop a teleworker from being engaged with the work. This seemingly positive
aspect might have some backfire effect: sometimes one needs to take a justified break.
Failing to do so might have negative influence on health in the long term as suggested
by Steward (1997). On the positive side, Di Martino and Wirth (1991) and Caudron
(1992) indicate benefits gained by home-working for employers in productivity terms
(see also Metzger and Von Glinow 1988). Along the same line, Stavrinidis (1991)
provides financial analysis, claiming significant savings for companies in terms of
office space, cars and use of time.
To conclude, Mahfood claims that there are no losers in telecommuting. All win:
workers, employers, and even society in general (1992, p. 9). If this is the case, one
may wonder why the phenomenon has not spread further. The answer is never sim-
ple. Whereas teleworkers embrace many possible advantages, other possible pitfalls
exist too, which the supporters of teleworking tend to underestimate. Financial and
operational benefits of teleworking alone are not sufficient to justify it (Gonyea and
Googins, 1993). The question whether the work-family interface benefits or suffers
(Mele, 1989) also needs to be addressed. As Baruch and Nicholson (1997) argue, four
factors needs to be present simultaneously to enable effective teleworking: the job—
the nature of work and fit of technology for the specific work-role; the organisation—
how supportive is the business culture to home-working arrangements, including
the willingness and ability of workplace-based management to trust teleworkers; the
home/work interface—covering a diverse range of factors from the quality of family
relations to the kind of physical space and facilities available; and the individual—
fit of teleworking with personal attitude, values, norms, qualities and needs.
The latter is concerned with the meaning and the impact of teleworking for the
individual worker. We can expect effects of five kinds:

36 New Technology, Work and Employment  Blackwell Publishers Ltd. 2000.

쐌 identity—changed conceptions of oneself as an employee, family member,
career aspirant
쐌 skills—development or atrophy of skills, including social and time manage-
ment skills
쐌 context—changed awareness of communications, distractions, use of time and
space
쐌 role demands—changed priorities, demands, constraints and supports in relation
to elements of tasks and relationships
쐌 role outcomes—changed attitudes and satisfactions, felt stress, performance, and
material rewards/costs
At another level there is the question of work-family life interface. Teleworking alters
the relationship between work and family life, and affects stress and occupational
health. Both issues have been mentioned in the literature (Near, Rice and Hunt, 1980;
Gonyea and Googins, 1993), but still need to be studied in depth. Richter and Meshu-
lam (1993) present a model which places the individual between their family and
their managers, such that under conditions of teleworking the person may feel the
influence of ‘family culture’ as strongly as that of the organisational culture. Individ-
ual’s performance may be affected by the way their employment status and manner
of working may be perceived, accepted and reacted to by both fellow workers and
family members.
The issue of employee privacy, especially in relation to the family-work interface
may be raised sharply in a teleworking situation. Zuboff (1988) notes the possible
impact of the ability of organisations to record actions and communications of
employees. Teleworking situations present a case where an invasion of individual
privacy becomes feasible through the use of simple control mechanisms: all the com-
munication of teleworkers can be monitored easily, with or without the employee
knowledge and consent (see Cash, Eccles, Nohria, and Nolan, 1993). Although such
control mechanisms are widely applied in the conventional work place, applying
them in the home environment may be interpreted as crude intrusion of personal
space.
Teleworking provides an innovative perspective into different ways for developing
individual careers (cf. Peiperl and Baruch 1997). For some, working from home may
create new career opportunities (Evans, 1993), whereas for others it might be a dead
end path: out of sight (from headquarters) is out of mind (when promotion decisions
are being taken). Individual differences in personality dispositions and skills will
also affect the acceptability of teleworking. People with high needs for autonomy
may greatly appreciate its benefits: individual ability to work on their own is essential
for teleworking (see Olson, 1991), while others with high needs for affiliation may
feel it as a deprivation. In a home-working situation the boundaries between work
and leisure suffer from ambiguity, or are totally diminish. Boundaries are needed to
separate what is included in work and what is excluded. Boundaries should be man-
aged so that all inputs function in a co-ordinated way, in relation to the organisation
as an open system (Miller and Rice, 1967, cited in Roberts 1994). Ambiguous bound-
aries might increase possible stress.
All in all, teleworking can provide benefits for individuals, organisations and
nations. The literature conveys a variety of possible impacts, some are expected to
be positive whereas others would be negative. Table 1 summarises the possible bene-
fits and shortcomings of teleworking as reflected in the literature. These need, of
course, to be examined by empirical research, and the present study was designed
to provide some relevant answers:

Objectives
The principal objective of this study was to explore how teleworkers perceive this
mode of work, compared to office based employment. It was set to test some possible
positive as well as negative aspects which were suggested in the literature, and to

 Blackwell Publishers Ltd. 2000. Teleworking 37

 Table 1: Possible benefits and shortcomings of teleworking

possible benefits possible shortcomings

individual *improved performance and *less opportunities for affiliation

better productivity
*less time spent on commuting
*satisfying need for autonomy
*less work related stress
*more time with the family
*could be the only way to work
at all (mothers of infants,
disabled, etc.)
*detachment from social
interactions
*more home related stress
*less influence over people and
events at workplace
*questionable job security
*fewer career development
options

organisational *higher productivity *home-workers are more difficult

*wider labour market to draw to control and motivate
upon *less committed employees
*space saved *loss of team-working benefits
*lower overhead costs
*less absenteeism
*image of a flexible workplace

national *less commuting, less pollution, *the creation of an autistic

congestion, accidents society (ie. individuals atomised
*more people can work – less and isolated from social
discrimination institutions)

examine what is the actual impact of teleworking. On the assumption that the effects
of teleworking will be diverse, the aim here was to investigate the expected mixed
effects on productivity and satisfaction as perceived by employees who experienced
teleworking. Also, as argued above, individual fit may have a direct impact on the
success or failure of teleworking. Thus an attempt was carried out to characterise
the profile of a prospect successful teleworker.

Method
The study took the form of an interview survey. Interviews were conducted with 62
teleworkers from five UK organisations. The survey focussed on past career develop-
ment, future career perceptions, performance, work attitudes, and stresses encoun-
tered in relation to work and family life. Respondents were also asked to identify
factors which they perceived either to provide support or to hinder effective tele-
working, and to suggest qualities which will characterise a good or bad teleworker.
The target population of the study are people employed by an organisation and
who work from their home. Other telecommuting modes of work were not studied
here (eg. freelancers, as studied by Stanworth and Stanworth, 1989 and Dooley, 1996)
nor was household industry such as frequently found in third world manufacturing
(see Vasquez, 1991, cited in Vega-Ruiz, 1992). The teleworkers had shifted to this
mode of working from workplace based employment. This provides the means to
achieve a detailed understanding of experiential differences between the two modes
of work. Such a research design enabled a before-after comparison from those who
experience both modes, but might be biased as it is based on retrospective percep-
tions. Creating a control group proved to be too complicated a task in this case, as
the participants varied across organisations, occupations, time spent as teleworker
vs. office work, gender, age, etc. For example, in one organisation most people were

38 New Technology, Work and Employment  Blackwell Publishers Ltd. 2000.

the sale-force, which was all transformed into teleworking—thus no control group
was available.

Population

The five organisations were: an accountancy firm (one of the Big-Six), two large
insurance companies (SunLife and Standard Life), British Telecom, and one local
government agency. In each organisation a representative contact person was asked
to provide details of teleworkers who were willing to be interviewed for ‘a study on
the impact of teleworking’. In one company these were all six people on a telework-
ing trial which lasted about a year at the time. In another, the group included most
of the workers in a department which was transformed into teleworking. The other
cases included people who responded to a call to participate, arranged by the person-
nel manager.
The occupations involved were mostly middle level management and sales person-
nel. In the accountancy firm these were consultants and managers (mostly mid-level
management, but also including one senior partner); in SunLife most teleworkers
were sales people, some are mobile workers. At Standard Life these were office work-
ers in low and mid level management, in BT the population included managers and
engineers from several departments, including research and development. The local
government employees were office workers in clerical jobs. About one third of the
participants were on a full-time teleworking status whereas the rest worked from
home for most or for a considerable period of their working-time (eg. two days
a week).
Sixty-two interviews took place, all were conducted by the author. Participation
was not limited by the relative time spent at home as opposed to work (ie. includes
partial home-workers), nor by workers’ position in the organisation. Apart from
excluding home production industry, all other types of teleworking were allowable.
Forty-one were males, 21 females, with an average age of 38 (SD-7.3). Tenure varied,
(average 10.1 years, SD-8.3), and average teleworking tenure was 2.8 years, (SD-2.1).
Most were managers and professionals, including some in top level positions. Only
three came from the rank and file (see later for elaboration); 15 were sales personnel.
The educational level was high: only 12 had no tertiary education, 14 had a diploma
etc., 23 had a first degree, and 10 had a second or third degree (3 missing values).
Most of them (45) had volunteered for home-working, and for another 5 it was a
mutual decision, whereas for 8 it was imposed (4 missing values).

Research instrument

The interview was semi-structured, and the form consisted of some closed questions
(such as educational level, job characteristics, commuting time before the transition),
and open ones (such as aims in choosing or agreeing to be a teleworker, stressors,
qualities essential for effective teleworking). At the start of the interview the parti-
cipants were asked what were their aims when they opt for (or agreed to be transfor-
med to) teleworking. Then they were asked how far the transformation has fulfilled
these aims (the answers were converted into a Likert scale, from 1—not at all, to 5—
fully accomplished). In addition performance appraisal (PA) was measured according
to Baruch (1996), by self PA combined with reported direct manager PA and effec-
tiveness (self perception of present effectiveness compared to that before trans-
forming, measured on a 1–5 scale). A one page questionnaire was administrated
during the interview. This included several standard measures of work attitudes—
job satisfaction, job involvement, organisational satisfaction, career future perception,
and attachment component of organisational commitment, all taken from The Experi-
ence of Work, by Cook et al. (1981).

 Blackwell Publishers Ltd. 2000. Teleworking 39

 Results
Several possible changes which characterised how teleworking influences the way
people work after opting to telework were examined. First was the impact on work-
ing hours: teleworking had resulted in more time devoted to work. Compared to
time spent on work before and after moving to teleworking, working hours were
increased in 48% of the cases, stayed the same for further 40%, and reduced for only
11%. An associated change was found in the expected impact on commuting time:
only 22.6% gained less than 1 hour per home-working day. The rest had reduced
travel time of 1–2 hours per day (35.5%); 2–3 hours per day (22.6%) or 3 hours and
above per day (19.3%).
Another important effect identified is concerned with overall work effectiveness
(self perceived). Compared with previous arrangements of work effectiveness, 34 per
cent and 42 per cent felt it was much better or better (respectively), totalling a positive
impact for 76 per cent, with just 5 per cent suggesting no difference and 3 per cent
worse (none—much worse, 16 per cent did not answer). The impressive improve-
ment in work effectiveness should be of great importance for employers. Better per-
formance was attributed mostly to the elimination of distractions which are typical
at the workplace and subsequently the ability to focus on work.
Tables 2 and 3 present the correlation among the main research variables.
Fulfilling aims was positively correlated with improvement in family relationships.
The improvement seems also to affect reduction in work related stress (but not sig-
nificant with home related stress). The negative (though not significant) correlation
between PA and perceived effectiveness should raise the attention of HR managers.
This might indicate detachment of managers from their people, or detachment of
teleworkers from the organisational framework, expectations and systems. As for
work attitudes, search for another job was strongly correlated to organisational and
job satisfaction, but fulfilling the aims of the move to teleworking was not correlated
with any of the studied work attitudes. Fulfilling aims was also not associated with
perceived effectiveness, thus eliminating the possible ‘self fulfilling prophecy’ related
explanation. Other significant correlations were expected as these are well docu-
mented in the literature (eg. between job satisfaction, organisational satisfaction, com-
mitment, etc.).

Teleworking and employment stability:

Two specific questions were directed to evaluate the ‘tendency to leave’, a variable
identified in former studies as antecedent to actual quitting of jobs (Kirschenbaum
and Weisberg, 1994; Weisberg and Kirschenbaum 1991). These were: ‘it would be
very hard to leave, even if I wanted’ and ‘I have searched for another job recently’.
Quite surprisingly, these two variables were not significantly correlated (r = .04).
Compared with other variables, the first was positively correlated with age (r = .32,
p ⬍ .05), whereas the second was negatively correlated with gender (r = .35, p ⬍ .01).

Table 2: Correlations: performance, aims, stress and family

performance fulfilling improved reduced reduced

appraisal aims family work home
relationship related related
stress stress

home-working effectiveness ⫺.27 ⫺.03 .37** .15 ⫺.01

performance appraisal ⫺.05 ⫺.32 ⫺.02 .05
fulfilling aims .33* .18 .08
family relationship .44** .26
work-related stress .45**

40 New Technology, Work and Employment  Blackwell Publishers Ltd. 2000.

 Blackwell Publishers Ltd. 2000.
Table 3: Correlations: aims, career, organisational and job attitudes

fulfilling Career future Organisational Organisational Job Job Search for

aims perception commitment satisfaction involvement satisfaction another job

Home-working effectiveness ⫺.03 .23 .03 .03 .18 .32* .14

Fulfilling aims ⫺.08 .12 .14 .16 .23 ⫺.06
Career future perception .34** .42** .32* .37** ⫺.15
Organisational commitment .51** .42** .47** ⫺.13
Organisational Satisfaction .25 .73** ⫺.46**
Job involvement .30* .07
Job satisfaction ⫺.43**

Teleworking
41
This findings, coupled with t-tests results, indicate that tendency to leave decrease
with age, but actual search relates strongly to gender—males were found to be more
actively searching the labour market. The author suspects these findings are not
restricted to teleworkers, but may be more significant in their case.

Stress and teleworking:

An attempt was made to analyse stress levels using the CIA perception measure
(O’Driscoll and Cooper, 1994), to evaluate whether stress for teleworkers would be
related to factors originating from work. People were asked:
‘Can you tell me about a specific situation which you have experienced at work
(over past 6–12 months) which caused you serious difficulties or problems?’ and then,
‘What were the main causes or sources of the problem in this situation?’
Contrary to expectations, there was very little variety in the responses. The two main
stressors emerged were ‘working to dead-line or tight time scale’ and ‘general work
overload’. The interesting findings were relating to the impact of teleworking on family
life and stress. A specific question was targeted at the source of stress. This has changed
since the transformation to teleworking, as before it was concerned with commuting,
but now is due to new roles. A general question enquired as to differences in stress
level caused by work and by family/home life. The results were as below:

Stress after changing to teleworking:

The situation concerning work related stress seemed to be much better, according to
the perceptions of the respondents (Table 4). However, it indicates that the family
now causes more stress (though in general the family relationship were improved
by teleworking). The findings support most of Adams, King and King (1996)
assertions about prospects of conflict between work and family. Different findings
such as antecedents of life satisfaction may be due to the possibility that in telework-
ing situations, it is accepted in advance that work will interfere with family life.
Also, as in Duxbury, Higgins and Thomas (1996), no evidence for a phenomenon of
‘computer widows’ was found (‘computer widows’—a phenomenon when people
get attached to their computers, and practically abandon family life, being addicted
to continuing to work on their commuters). A different concept was presented by
Hochschild (1997) who argues work sometimes serves as a sanctuary space for people
trying to avoid their families. For them teleworking would be a disaster, as they seek
a place to hide away from the family whereas teleworking sets them in the house.
Other questions referred to the reaction of co-workers who did not opt for tele-
working, impact on health, importance of dedicated space, what would be the best
balance between office and home based modes, and what is needed to be an effective

Table 4: Impact on family life and stress

As a whole, has the Comparing with Comparing with

change made family stress caused by stress caused by
life better or worse? work, is the family, is the
situation now (ie. situation now (ie.
after moving to after moving to
teleworking) teleworking):

much worse 0 – 4
worse 5 7 21
the same 10 20 26
better 38 27 2
much better 3 9 1 ⫹ 6 times ‘0’ – no
stress at all
missing 6 5 2

42 New Technology, Work and Employment  Blackwell Publishers Ltd. 2000.

teleworker. In general, the most common answers for ‘co-workers reaction’ were
suspicion, jealousy, or both. The perceived impact on health was diverse, most felt
better with no commuting and less stress, but some indicated that the need for physi-
cal activity was denied while at home. A specific, designated room was perceived
as essential, and the best balance for most participants was 2–3 days at home, 3–
2 days in the office. Very few would go to the extreme of being a teleworker all
the time.
The last question in the interview may have important implications for prac-
titioners dealing with selecting the right people for teleworking. In an attempt to
develop a profile of ‘best teleworker’, a direct question was presented to the parti-
cipants: “Which are, in your opinion, the individual qualities that makes a person
fit for teleworking”. It was an open question, asked with no attempt to prompt any
particular answer, subsequently providing a variety of responses. Straightforward
analysis, counting of frequencies for qualities, competencies, skills, etc. mentioned,
produce the following as the most needed (in brackets—cases mentioned by the 62
people): self discipline (36); self motivation (28); ability to work on own (26); tenacity
(18); organised person (18); self confident (11); time management (11); computer liter-
acy (11 only, not in line with pre-conceptions prevail in the popular press); integrity
(11); and communication skills (2). Other 10 answers were mentioned only once.
Individual qualities that makes a person unfit for teleworking were high need for
social life (23), and a need to be supervised (22). Other 7 answers were mentioned
only ones.

Discussion and conclusions

In their seminal works, Toffler (1981) and later Handy (1984) predicted home-work-
ing to be the phenomenon of the near future, ie. today. It seems, however, that the
forecast was far above actual implementation. The developments have not met the
expectations. Theoretically, considerable numbers of people in many workplaces
could practice teleworking. In the eighties Olson and Primps (1984) suggested that
more than 50% of office work could be conducted from people’s homes and Steinle
(1988) argued that two-thirds of jobs could fit teleworking. This study suggests that
teleworking, in conventional organisations, could be a very good idea—for certain
people and certain employers. As teleworking does not fit every workplace, so fewer
people than expected would find it working well for them, both due to individual
characteristics or home and family situation (see also Gottlieb, Kelloway and Barham,
1998). It could also fit individuals in critical periods of time (eg. woman during preg-
nancy, man with young children, someone temporarily recovering from an accident,
operation, etc.).
Looking back at our suggestion in the introduction, let us examine the five kinds
of effects of teleworking on individuals:
쐌 identity—teleworking did not change conceptions of oneself as an employee, as
long as the teleworking share was balanced by work in the ‘standard mode’. It
had a positive impact for the employee as a family member, and negative on
career aspiration and future career perceptions.
쐌 skills—time management skills proved crucial for effective teleworking, with the
ability to keep in social contact through the net. Technical skills (eg. computer
literacy) were not perceived as a crucial factor.
쐌 context—though there was a significant change of communications method and
use of time and space, the most noticeable impact was on reduction of distrac-
tions which are typical at the workplace.
쐌 role demands—there were no specific indications for changed priorities, demands,
and constraints in relation to elements of tasks. Nevertheless, from the relation-
ships and support aspect, the home proved to be better than the office environ-
ment.
쐌 role outcomes—Teleworking enabled managers and professionals to get better
(perceived) performance due to their ability to work without interruptions. The

 Blackwell Publishers Ltd. 2000. Teleworking 43

 most prominent advantages of teleworking according to our sample are con-
cerned with changed attitudes and satisfactions, felt stress, and material
rewards/costs. Greater satisfaction, perceived performance and reduced stress
characterised the teleworkers.

It would be of great importance to characterise people who may be best fit to tele-
working. The findings suggest the most important attribute to be self discipline. Inner
motivation is crucial where complex and high level jobs need to be carried out, as
was the case in the present study (eg. managerial and professional work) whereas
simple and direct control mechanisms should suffice for rank and file jobs (eg. word
processing). Similar reasons for opting for teleworking were found by IDS 616 (1996,
p. 3). That report also confirms the importance of a voluntary decision (p. 5), as found
in the present study. For a more general theoretical framework on the decision mak-
ing process of individuals to telework see Mokhtarian and Salomon (1994).
However, it is not merely due to individual characteristics. One aspect which
emerged as a key factor in the success of teleworking programmes does not related
to any individual traits or qualities but to an external element: the availability of
space at home. People need to distinguish between work and other facets of life, and
having a separate study or room for work purposes is perceived as crucial. This
implies that many people, especially in lower socio-economic classes, may not be fit
for teleworking. Another key factor is concerned with the presence of young children.
Some respondents without children at home pointed out that they did not think
teleworking would be feasible if they had young children. But for teleworker parents
children posed no problem. For others, in this case working mothers with youngsters,
teleworking was the only option to work. This means that the answer changes with
the age or presence of children. All in all, the present study indicates that work-
family interference may be a hindrance to further growth in teleworking (as also
found by Gottlieb et all 1998, p. 108).
In relation to the gender issue, in contrast to other gender focussed studies of
teleworking, the population in the present study included mostly professionals. Thus
the situation was quite distinct from reinforcing traditional gender roles (cf. Huws
et al, 1996). Thus gender did not play a significant role in this study, and statistical
analysis did not reveal significant and meaningful differences in this respect. Other
studies, concerned with a variety of occupations found differences between males
and females (Felstead 1996). Some individual cases under study, which may be gen-
der related, manifested how teleworking can be a good solution for specific con-
ditions. Such situations may arise when a person has a period of time raising children
or short term conditions (eg. one participant broke her leg and was temporarily
unable to commute), when working from home can be a better solution than the
alternative of dropping out from the labour-market, which can cause hindrances in
the future development of career. However, if people work totally from home, they
can loose touch, and for them teleworking will become a dead end career path. If,
however, a balance is maintained between presence at work and effective telework-
ing, this can be the best way to develop one’s career.
To conclude the individual level discussion, we may refer to Armstrong (1993),
who says that the office is really a terrible place to work from. For some this is
definitely true. These people could be the core group in any organisation to start
working from home, or to be the constituencies of the virtual organisation.
At the organisational level, similarly, introducing teleworking presents both
advantages and disadvantages. The most prominent advantage found in the study
was better performance conducted under teleworking conditions, in both quality and
quantity of work done. These findings are based on self perception, which can be a
reliable and valid source of information on performance (Baruch 1996). The findings
confirm results of former studies (Huws 1990, Gray et al. 1993, IDS 616 1996, Jackson
and van der Wielen 1998, MITEL, 1999) on the positive consequences of teleworking
for employers. The positive outcomes of teleworking were manifested in a better
quality of life for the employees involved.

44 New Technology, Work and Employment  Blackwell Publishers Ltd. 2000.

 Teleworking should not be restricted to the so-called virtual organisations. The
employers which participated in the present study are ‘conventional’ organisations,
and teleworking was beneficial for them. Another aspect of teleworking is the pros-
pect of cost saving in premises costs. It seems that while reduction of overhead costs
was suggested as a primary motivator for organisations to introduce teleworking,
this should be regarded at best as a positive by-product of teleworking. The real
benefits stem from having a more effective workforce. As suggested above, best
results are obtained when people work part of their time from home and part at the
office. This means the physical workplace is not made redundant, but rather shrinks
a bit. ‘Hot desking’ systems can be employed to reduce space usage (see also IDS
reports and Huws, 1993). This, however, will not create significant savings, at least
not to the scale which may be anticipated from totally eliminating office space costs.
What is more important is the type of organisational culture in which teleworking
will flourish. It needs to be a culture of trust, from both managers and peers of the
teleworkers. Also a culture of management where people are measured by results
rather than by attendance is appropriate for teleworking. It seems that a critical mass
(in numbers or proportion of people within organisation or department) is needed to
create an environment in which teleworking will be acceptable. Perlow (1995) sug-
gested there is still an assumption that individuals must be present at work to succeed.
Where this is the case, teleworking will not succeed. Huws (1993), Huws et al (1990)
and Korte and Wynne (1996) provide an analysis focussed on the organisational view-
point. Korte and Wynne (1996) and Jackson and Van der Wielen (1998) elaborate also
on national comparisons in European context, which this article cannot reflect upon
due to restriction to UK population at individual and organisational level.
However, it is not only the culture but also the type of roles. There are quite a
few limitations to the kind of jobs which can be performed outside the conventional
workplace. All the cases under study were such that the job description did not
require presence at the workplace. Teleworking, though, is not practical for many
forms of production where physical presence is necessary for the co-ordination of
effort. It also cannot be practised in many personal services and sales occupations,
where a central point of contact is needed to offer goods and services to customers
and clients. But even in these cases, options for extension of teleworking are now
being made possible by IT: such as video links for advisory services, interactive
expert systems for problem solving, and virtual reality imaging for design work.
The third level of analysis is the national or society level. Teleworking may gener-
ate very positive impacts, on both the aggregate outputs at the individual and organ-
isational levels, but also on society in general. As indicated elsewhere (Mahfood,
1992, Mokhtarian and Salomon, 1994), teleworking means fewer road congestion,
subsequently fewer accidents and pollution. From the legal and equal opportunity
view point, teleworking enable fulfilling, quality employment for a significant group
of people—disabled, single parents and women—to participate in the labour market.
Nevertheless, even at the society level teleworking has possible disadvantages and
problems. One of them is the prospect of isolation and exclusion of teleworkers from
other members of the society. Peiperl and Baruch (1997) have coined the term ‘autistic
society’. They suggest that phenomena such as the virtual organisation and extending
teleworking might create an ‘Autistic Society’, in which people are detached from
each other, and suffer from communication problems. The two main syndromes of
autism are an extreme isolation from human contact and anxiety for the surrounding
physical environment to remain unchanged (as described by Rutter, 1979 and more
recently by Holtzapfel, 1995, in the context of autistic children). These, in fact, charac-
terise home-working as well—what is lacking in home-working is the human touch
of relationships between people. A lot of information is delivered, but the vehicle
used can deliver only part of the message. The body language, the gestures, all these
ingredients of communication are not present. The feeling element is missing. As our
whole society becomes more isolated, working from home can provide manifestation
for this trend of our time.
However, others suggest electronic communication can be perceived as a rich

 Blackwell Publishers Ltd. 2000. Teleworking 45

medium (Lee, 1994). Along the same lines, Nohria and Eccles (1992) argue that as
the amount of organizational electronic mail interaction increases, the amount of face-
to-face interaction will also have to increase, though not to the same level. This, they
claim, is needed for a robust and effective organisational performance. Teleworkers
either provide the exception to this rule, or, as in the case of part-time teleworking,
will be engage more than others with face-to-face communication while in the office.
McKenney et al (1992) studied the communication patterns of email and face-to-face
communication in one team in one organisation (software programmers). They found
email to be effective for control, information distribution, and invoking specific
actions, while face-to-face was used mainly for problem solving and awareness to
the outer environment. Thus these two channels are complementary in their nature.
Teleworkers need to find a way for employing other media for discussions and prob-
lem solving activities. This can be done while they are in the office, but such a sol-
ution will not be fit for full-time teleworkers.
The final conclusion relates to the four factors needs to be present to enable effec-
tive teleworking: (a) the telework interface, which needs first, a match between work-
ing and the family point of view, and second, availability of the needed physical
facilities; (b) the job—a job for which relevant technology is available, and is achiev-
able without the necessity of physical presence in the workplace; (c) the individual:
personal qualities and circumstances play a significant role in determining the suc-
cess of a person in teleworking—not every person can work effectively from home,
or at least, not under all circumstances. Last but not least comes (d) the organisation:
a special culture is needed to enable teleworking to flourish, culture of the kind in
which relationships are build on trust. It is also a culture where one is measured
by results and output rather than by ‘being there’. It is that all four are required
simultaneously which can explain why teleworking is spreading steadily but not at
as fast a rate as predicted.
Future studies may focus on developing and managing teleworking. Examples of
issues which deserve further attention are selecting teleworkers and the emotional
aspect of teleworking. These, among others, should get considerable attention. In
relation to selection of the right people for teleworking, the list of individual charac-
teristics and qualities perceived essential for teleworker is extensive, but the problem
associated with it is its measurability. How to measure self discipline? How to evalu-
ate tenacity and integrity? Much of it will remain as the gut feeling of the people in
question and their managers. To acquire better understanding more theoretical con-
cepts needs to be addressed. Here is where either well established concepts such as
the McLelland theory of needs, or the more recently developed such as the Big Five
can provide a useful framework. It is left for future studies to develop and test a
framework for selecting teleworkers, either for internal transfers or for recruiting
people for teleworking roles. In relation to the emotional aspects of teleworking and
in particular the home-work interface, teleworking represents a typical example for
what is now termed ‘the boundaryless organisation’ and ‘the boundaryless career’.
Teleworking is a mode of flexible work, which helps the distinction between work
and private life to fade away. This will have consequences for individuals and their
families. Organisations should find new ways to manage this ‘illusive workplace’,
develop innovative career paths, and put in place proper support mechanisms for
teleworkers. Lastly, an additional area where further studies are needed is cross sec-
torial and cross cultural comparative studies, to examine more opportunities for
effective teleworking.

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Appendix: a Cronbach of the measures used

Measure No of items Alpha

Cronbach

Career future perception 4 .81

Organisational commitment 3 .73
(attachment)
Organisational satisfaction 4 .79
Job satisfaction 4 .71
Job involvement 6 .74

 Blackwell Publishers Ltd. 2000. Teleworking 49