European Telework Week
Now in its fifth year, European Telework Week has done much to promote teleworking and new ways of working in Europe. It is the focal point of many activities that go on throughout the year as part of the European Commission's commitment to promote the understanding of telework and the Information Society. This year over 100 events took place throughout Europe over the period 1 to 7 November, increasing the awareness of the telework agenda at local, regional and national levels. There were national Telework Award programmes in The Netherlands, Germany, France and Italy, but the highlight of the week was the European Telework Awards ceremony which took place in Brussels on 5 November and was webcast to audiences in Paris and Italy. But what is telework? ETW coordinator Elise Briand says it is often seen as home-based telework, whereas teleworking can take many different forms. Generally it refers to the use of computers and telecommunications to change the accepted geography of work. This means that certain groups of persons who would otherwise be unable to work, for example the geographically remote, single mothers or the disabled, are given an opportunity to find employment. Today there are over four million teleworkers in Europe, and over nine million engaged in new working practices directly involving the use of networked technologies. In the 1997 and 1998 Telework Status reports, the level of teleworking across Europe was reported as between 1.5 and 2 million and about 4.6 million respectively. Today, in 1999, this level may have doubled. These data hide substantial variations across the Member States. Telework has really taken off in Northern Europe with rates as high as 8.25 per cent of the workforce in Scandinavia and 7.52 per cent in the Benelux countries. This percentage falls as low as 2.57 per cent in France and 1.87 per cent in Spain, Portugal and Greece. The EU average is 4.3 per cent. Ms Briand says it is a cultural thing. 'In countries such as Greece, people like to be around other people when they are working, and teleworking doesn't appeal as much. It's more popular in big cities in the North, where big companies have to pay a lot of money for office space and are attracted by the potential savings to be made through telework. In The Netherlands it has really taken off, and they are beginning to look at other things, such as how telework can contribute to traffic reduction.' The Telework Awards which for the past three years have been the highlight of European Telework Week, were set up to give recognition to individuals, companies or institutions who have made the greatest contribution to the development and uptake of telework in Europe. The winners were selected from a shortlist with equal weight given to the votes of the jury, an Internet poll and the audience's preferences. There were six categories of award: best example in a large organisation, best example in SMEs, best supporting public initiative, best contribution to public awareness, best initiative supporting disadvantages and best supporting technology or service. The ceremony was opened by Peter Johnston, head of unit in the Commission's Information Society Directorate-General, who praised the ceremony for paying tribute to European excellence in an area where it must be encouraged. He said: 'It is important that we recognise excellence wherever we find it in Europe. We must increasingly focus on best practices in Europe and make sure that the public at large has access to information about how to change their working practices. Even in today's environment of rapid technological change, introducing new technologies and new working practices requires great courage and great support, something we will see in all the contenders here today.' Master of ceremonies Alex Puissant then introduced a telework 'marathon', where each shortlisted contender gave a five minute presentation of their project on which the audience were invited to vote. The best example in a large organisation was awarded to Teleworking in Danica, a Danish insurance company where 150 out of 250 agents have chosen to work from home. The telework facilitation service for the Western Isles of Scotland (UK) took the prize for the best example of an SME. Work-global.com is a teleworking facilitation arm of the Western Isles ICT advisory service, and was praised by jury member Marten Botteman, for the way it has dealt with the problems of depopulation, the complexity of its agenda and the persistence of its organisers. The best supporting public initiative category was taken by Comune di Napoli, a telework and local development project in Naples, which the judges commended for its innovation. Naestved, a Danish project which offers admittance to distance learning courses to excluded citizens took the award for best initiative supporting the disabled. Another Danish company, the third to win a category, Tele Danmark was considered to have made the best contribution to public awareness. And finally France Telecom, who also sponsor the awards, won the prize for the best supporting technology or service for their telework trial using ADSL technology. The next European assembly on teleworking and new ways of working will take place in London, from 13 to 15 September 2000.