The idea originated in the mind of the father of cybernetics, Norber Wiener, who in 1950 imagined the case of an architect situated in Europe supervising the construction of a building in the USA with the help of a fax machine (WIE, 50). In this way, Wiener demonstrated that transporting information could take the place of transporting solid matter.
The growth of interest in teleworking took its real start in the early 1970s during the first international oil crisis, which highlighted the energy wastage in public and private transport systems. In the USA in 1974, Jack Nilles introduced the concept of "telecommuting", which later became "teleworking" in Europe, Telecommuting took its place as one of the ways of saving on energy used in daily home-office-home travelling by replacing physical transport with electronic communication [NIL, 76].
In 1980, in his three-stage world history plan, Alvin Toffler referred to teleworking as one of the basic elements of the "third wave" period then starting. He foresaw that with the new information-based system of production, workplaces by the million would move away from the company premises to the homes of the workers [TOF, 80]. In Toffler's vision of the future, the microcomputer = domestic household equation would nourish the hope of rediscovering the virtues of a community of small producers in permanent communicative interaction. Employees could then enjoy the taste of independent work far from the bureaucratic burdens of the big business firm [LAL, 90].
The late 1970s saw the first wave of experiments in most countries of the western world.
In France, for example, the concept was introduced after publication of a government report on the computerisation of society [NOR, 78], which heralded the convergence of information technology and telecommunications. Initiating the movement was the public telecommunications operator, later to become France Télécom. While constituting a showcase for the new telematic services, the first teleworking trials conducted at the beginning of the 1980s by the public operator in the form of satellite centres were aimed primarily at improving living and working conditions for employees, even to the extent of maintaining a job close to the home of those whose office-based position had just been abolished. This palliative and social notion of teleworking, close to Toffler's Utopia, dominated the experiments in France.
At around the same time, several other teleworking projects <were launched, with the press making numerous moves in this direction. Many of these projects, however, were to enjoy only a short life, while others publicly proclaimed in loud terms were never even to see the light of day.
Because of the paucity of real applications,some observers noted that never had so many people made so much noise for so little. A Dutch scientist went so far as to declare that; "There are far more telework researchers than actual teleworkers." [STE, 88].
In the early 1990s, several factors helped to revive interest in teleworking in its various forms: structural factors, economy-related factors, technological change and geographical imbalance [BRE, 93].
The 1980-1990 decade was a period of transition towards a post-industrial society now referred to as the Information Society. The orientation of the traditional economy towards a service-based economy increased in intensity during this decade, at the end of which it was estimated that more than 50% of the workforce in the industrialised countries were working more or less directly in the information sector, as opposed to the goods manufacturing sector.
France provides one example of this phenomenon. During the 1980-1990 decade, the number of workers fell by 7% and farmers by 33%. In the same period, the number of clerical workers went up 7% and that of executive personnel and intellectual workers by 40% (INSEE – census of the French population in 1990).
In earlier decades, however, most of the increase in productivity was achieved in the manufacturing sector, while in the tertiary sector, productivity itself was relatively low. With the economy now tending to become more service-based, it is essential for business firms to improve the competitiveness of their tertiary activities.
Teleworking is one of the means of rationalising work, that can be employed to meet this new productivity imperative.
In the industrialised countries, the 1980s decade was also one of economic recession and intensifying competition. Many firms were forced to re-examine their organisation with a view to improving flexibility.
In this context, both public authorities and business firms looked on teleworking as a new opportunity that would allow them to:
·
reduce
overheads and, in particular, property fees
·
maintain
local employment, notwithstanding a certain degree of restructuring
·
increase
the firm's reactivity potential by freeing skills from spatial constraints
·
relocating
activities closer to markets or regions better targeted from the economic
viewpoint
·
increase
productivity (it was estimated at the time that teleworking could raise the
employee's productivity by 20%).
·
transform
fixed costs into variable costs by outsourcing certain activities.
This brought about a change in the then current paradigm. The palliative and social paradigm of the 1980s gradually gave way to one of an economic and strategic nature [LEM, 94].
It was during the 1980s that the explosion in the IT and telecommunications sectors wqas triggered. The growth in networks (notably with the spread of ISDN), technological progress, falling component costs, miniaturisation of equipment, etc. caused the technical obstacles to the development of teleworking to tumble one after the other.
The use of tools such as the fax, communicating PCs and e-mail began to become commonplace in the course of the decade.
The end of the 1990s witnessed a boom in cell phones and the beginning of the exponential spread of the Internet.
The hook-up of firms and private households to fibre optic networks and the creation of fast "information superhighways" carrying sound, image and data, and the explosion in the multimedia sector offered still more prospective opportunities.
The consequences of all this were twofold:
·
more
flexibility in regard to the siting and rhythm of media-based work activity
·
a
steady increase in the range of activities and population groups where
teleworking could find application [LEM, 94].
At an "informal" meeting in March 1995 of 15 European Ministers on the subject of regional planning, the following was observed:
·
growing
concentration in the major conurbations
·
greater
job mobility
·
deterioration
of the environment
·
saturation
of the major exchange routes by 2015
·
loss
of attractiveness of certain peripheral geographical zones in each country and
in a number of peripheral regions in Western and Southern Europe because of
poor accessibility.
At this time in the mid-1990s, transport infrastructure was no longer a factor for balanced growth in Europe. On the contrary, it only accentuated the imbalance between countries. Lastly, excessive urbanisation was also involving indirect social costs (problems of delinquency, social exclusion, insecurity, etc.).
Where the regional planning issue is concerned, teleworking presents itself as a major means for the de-concentration of the population and geographical re-distribution of economic activity.
Since teleworking opens up the path for activities that are highly —if not totally— independent of the place where they are carried out, it may be employed as a means of reducing urban concentration and its drawbacks and of levelling out territorial imbalance by facilitating the geographical re-distribution of employment.
Re-distribution of economic activity can thereby benefit disadvantaged or isolated regions within a single country or within a group of countries that have chosen to pursue a common regional planning policy aimed at opening up certain regions or reducing population drain.
Imbalance is also reflected in the level of labour costs. The cost of one job (in regard to office equipment and salary) can be divided by 5, or even as much as 10, when situated in a rural zone, as opposed to the capital of the country.
Moreover, transport costs are continuously rising in the densely populated zones.
While this cost differential is true of one and the same country, it applies even more so when different countries are compared. A European computerist receives a 5 to 6 times higher salary than his Philippine or Indian counterpart. The figure rises to 10 where data input personnel are concerned. In addition, social charges in these countries are very low (10% of the salary in the Philippines, compared with 40% in France, for example).
Teleworking can in many cases prove to be a tool for re-locating jobs to low-wage countries or regions where social charges are lower.