Telework by Ana Luísa Neves

Introduction

Incredible as it may seem, planet Earth has been shrinking! In 1873, when Jules Verne wrote Around the World in Eighty Days, just the idea of achieving that was considered a fantasy because it was too short a period of time to go around this planet. Now, everything is different and eighty days would be enough to make the journey and also appreciate all the beautiful things there are to see.
But what is even more amazing is that one can reach the other side of the planet without even leaving one's couch: one just has to turn on the television set, pick up the phone and dial some digits or connect oneself to the Internet, and that's it! Everything is there: all one wants to know, all one wants to see...
The reason? The progress, the technological advances that were made, the dreams that became realities in the hands of those who believed in their talent. However, technological advances have proved to be a mixed blessing.

What is Telework?

Telework or telecommuting, as it is most commonly known in the USA, has a large number of definitions. Some of them are a little misleading because they start from the principle that telework is work done from the home. But that is not so. One can work at home without being a teleworker. Or, alternatively, one could be working neither at the office nor at home and still be teleworking. What is important is the occurrence of a real application of information and communication technologies "to enable work being done at a distance from the place where the results are needed or the work would conventionally have been done" (ETO,1997b), or shortly, telework is "the use of computers and telecommunications to change the accepted geography of work" (ETO,1997a). So, it is now easy to see that there are two main components in telework: one is the use of telecommunication technologies and, the other is the fact that the worker must no longer be in the office to do what s/he has to do. When at least one of these two components is missing, telework is certainly not what we are talking about.

How is Telework, Today?

There is a lot of talk about telework. What it is, whether it is good or bad... The fact is that it is already a reality in many countries and it is making a success. According to a research made by an American firm, in 1995 there were 9.1 million teleworkers in the United States and this number was expected to reach an increase of 20% every year.(Ellis,1995)
However, many researches have been made which present different results. Why? Because some consider only the official teleworkers, while others also count all those people that leave their offices and continue working at home making extra hours. Actually, the number of people working at home without the knowledge or the approval of the company is a lot bigger than one could expect. The need to guarantee the job, the insufficient time given to conclude the tasks, or, simply, the love for what they do, are some of the factors behind this sometimes forgotten reality. But this cannot be put aside. It must be faced, it must be understood, and the reasons must be studied because each one of them may be hiding the possibility of making employers and employees happier.
Another characteristic of the actual situation of the telework experience around the world is the fact that people work away from their offices only two or three days of the week. That reveals the interest of making telework a reality and also the difficulties that must be faced when trying to change the whole theory of work.

Telework. Why?

After defining and describing the current status of telework, we should consider the facts that led to this growing necessity of implementing telework. First of all, there was the need to cut down companies' expenses, namely those related to renting office space. The increasingly higher prices of offices and the continuing fall of technological equipment's prices, gave companies the best of reasons to discover another working place for their employees. Also, the ever present and increasing competition between companies drives to the creation of an environment where the employee and the client are the most important elements: the employee, so that s/he takes the company's best interests at heart, and the client so that s/he won't take his money to some other company. Telework appears as an immediate answer in the sense that the employee can work at or nearer his/her home, having more time to him/herself, and the client can have 24-hours service. Another point is the fact that with all the technological facilities at home, the employee can have a world of information at his/her feet. Thus, it is possible for him/her to have different and innovative ideas.
Then, comes another important reason: to enlarge the pool of people that can become part of the company's work force. Without the need of commuting so much to the main office, it is possible for some people, that under different conditions would not have the will or the possibility, to be hired as that company's employees (Bell,1995).

Is it good for Business?

Before telework can be adopted as an option by a company, there are lots of things that must be considered. Without their careful analysis, everything can go wrong, and once wrong it hardly becomes right. The problem is that there is always much resistance from employers and/or employees. If anything goes wrong on the first trial, they will have a strong argument to be against another try.
One of the first things to take into consideration is the kind of task that is meant to be done away from the office. There are lots of jobs that are likely to succeed outside the traditional workplace, but there are some that are not. The most obvious ones are those mainly based on information, such as research, software development, business management activities, journalism, publishing, advertising, and so on. However, it would hardly be possible to be away from a factory, for instance, canning food. Many hours of work are being spent trying to optimise the virtual reality that will make this last dream come true, but till then… Anyway, even if it is possible to do the tasks out of the office, the question is also whether it enhances the way they are done. The improvement can be measured in many ways, among which the economic point of view and the level of satisfaction of the employees are only some examples.
Another very important question that deserves a careful analysis is the organisational context. It is not possible to even think about implementing a telework policy in an organisation where the hierarchical structure is very dense or where an electronic network correctly and successfully explored does not exist. In the case of a bureaucratic and hierarchical structure, telework will hardly become a success. Why? Because a teleworker must be self-confident, must trust his/her knowledge, his/her experience and most of all must be trusted by those above him/her, and this profile is almost impossible in such an organisation.
After this being taken into consideration, it is necessary to guarantee the proper training for all those to be involved in the project: employers and employees. This is a vital step in the whole process and its objectives are to familiarise everyone with the way telework functions, to introduce some of the procedures that must not be forgotten and to assure the teleworkers that, even outside their usual workplace, they will not be alone (Bell,1995).

Is it good for the Employee?

Even when all the conditions are joined together for the success of telework, it may not end up that way. After taking everything into consideration for the global appliance of telework to the company's way of work, it is necessary to take a closer look at each and every one of the employees, because the success of all this is on their hands. If the possibility of teleworking is a major source of satisfaction for an employee, for another it can be a nightmare. And if that is so, that employee cannot telework because his/her tasks will not be well done, and his/her career will be over: what was before a great employee, if put under undesired conditions, can become a lousy one, which is bad for him/herself and for the company. So, much care must be taken! However, if anything goes wrong, the finger can never be pointed at the teleworker before making sure that everything else is fine, that is, before there is an assurance that s/he was properly trained and that s/he never lacked assistance.
After this introduction, let's go on to the characteristics desired and required from a teleworker and the most frequently observed in those who want to start teleworking.

The most commonly asserted reason for wanting to telework is the family. In fact, this is the reason why almost every teleworker is of the female gender (Pitman). Wishing to be near their young children, mothers ask to work from the home or from a nearby telecentre. After that, there comes a cost reduction purpose and the possibility of living far away from the office. Other reasons are disability, the desire to earn a little while having fun and the possibility of having more than one job.
These are the reasons that can drive someone to ask to become a teleworker. But, can they really become fulfilled teleworkers? Sometimes no. It is necessary that they have certain knowledge of the new technologies, a great mental flexibility and the capacity of managing time and resources. It is also vital that they be self-confident, that they can take a decision on their own and that they share the whole mission of the company, in order that they take their own path towards the company's desired destination. These are fundamental characteristics!

"Variations" on Telework

As it was said in the beginning, teleworking is not working at home, or at least it is not only working at home. Nor is it always working outside the usual place of work. In fact, the most common scenario of telework these days, when mankind is trying to make a soft entrance on the "telework world", is the one where employees work from a telecentre or from home, for instance, but only during some days of the week or even for only some periods of the day. So we call teleworker a person who works outside the office on Mondays and Wednesdays, for example, and also someone who only works there in the morning.
Another point that is frequently misunderstood is the place from where the teleworker works. It is not necessarily at his or her home, although it is the most common place. It can be from a satellite office, a telecentre, a telecottage or a televillage. What these are, is the question now.
A satellite office is a "remote office location usually placed within a large concentration of employee residences" (Benhamou). Here it is possible to find many employees of the same company working together. However, this does not transmit a real image of telework, does it? However far away from the headquarters they are still working near their colleagues and thus, questions like social isolation are scarce. The real advantage here is the fact that teleworkers won't have to face long distances to get to work. A telecentre then is the first great innovation! These centres are based on the same philosophy of the satellite offices, i.e., telecentres are also located near agglomerates of workers. However, there is a big difference: people working in those telecentres do not all belong to the same company. A telecentre is just a profit-purpose business that rents desk space to any company. That way, companies won't have to acquire equipment to place at all their workers' houses. Another advantage is that those telecentres guarantee the perfect conditions of the networking environment and the total hardware and software assistance (Simmins,1997). The telecottage concept is a little bit different. At first the telecottages were designed to be a place where inhabitants or remote villages learned the necessary skills in order to become closer to the new technological world. Nowadays, besides the telecommunication and computer application courses they provide, telecottages also make it possible for those living in those villages to telework. Even though people can have some of the equipment at home, they can go there and use, for instance, a shared printer. This is also a place where opinions can be heard, where a little bit of chatting is possible and where the isolation problem of teleworking loses its reason of being (Simmins,1997).
Finally, televillages are a wider concept of telecottages. By this, we mean a whole village wired and where "each home is fully equipped with an internal network connected to the village network and through broad band communications to the global village" (ETO,1997a).
Other concepts can be here presented, as is the case of the offshore and the nomadic telework. The first is when a company picks up their employees among people of foreign countries where "there is the right combination of costs, skills and entrepreneurship". The second has nothing to do with it. It is just the old concept of people that must travel a lot in order to meet the company's clients. The difference now, is that nowadays it is necessary to carry a PC everywhere. It is this kind of situation that is called nomadic telework, because the tasks are done outside the office using telecommunications facilities (telework explained) but the place from where the task is done is always uncertain (nomadic, too!).

Pros and Cons of Telework

As in everything, advantages and disadvantages can be pointed out on telework. Some of them are obvious, some of them are not. Some of them are real, some of them are mere speculations. I'll try to talk a little bit about each one of them and question them wherever I think the pessimism or, more frequently, the optimism is too much.

Advantages

* improved work opportunities
Many people have strong restrictions when looking for a job. Location is one of them and, most of the time, one of the strongest ones. The problem is that people just are not always available to change to another city or even country because of a job: there is the family, friends, and so many other motives. Being able to work at home or in telecentres makes them wide-open to accept jobs in companies far away from home where they just have to go to from time to time.
But is this really so? In my opinion, this is only possible for people with much experience, with a lot of self-esteem and specially for very open-minded people who can easily accept the fact of being far away from the headquarters and who think themselves capable of working according to the guidelines given and to the shared company's mission.

* more opportunities for the handicapped
This is a special case of the "improved work opportunities" advantage. Unfortunately, there are people with special needs. People who are restricted to a wheel chair or who cannot go out alone for plenty of reasons but who, despite of that fact, have lots of capacities that can be put to the service of a company. If letting them work at home will make it possible, or easier for them, to show what they are capable of and to bring the company the benefits of their intellectual capacities, do let telework become a reality for these people, please!

* flexibility
Time and space flexibility. In fact, people can start working where and when they want. If they prefer working at home from 2 a.m. till 9 a.m., it is up to them. What is important is that the task is done. That way it is possible to respect people's preferences and take advantage of people's more creative hours. The question here is: will telecentres be open all day? If not, how can we say people will be able to work whenever they want? Another aspect is one of the disadvantages that will be pointed out later, the uncontrolled work done: are teleworkers doing the right amount of work? Are they under or overworking?

* skills retention
Usually, pregnant women cannot work on their latter months of pregnancy and right after their babies are born. Sometimes this means great temporary losses to companies. If those women could work from home, those losses could be diminished. Besides, it is also possible to maintain as employees, people who have to go live in other parts of the country and who, otherwise, would have to leave the company. The pool of candidates for jobs at companies who accept telework policies, is also bigger, making possible a better choice.

* increase in productivity
According to studies, the employees productivity when teleworking suffers an increase. Maybe it is because they are happier, maybe because they can work when they want. What is certain is that telework is bringing this big advantage to companies. But, a big question arises: it is just the happiness of teleworkers that make them increase their productivity, or is the fact that more work is given to them in order to not let them work for other companies, for instance? The overworking teleworker is a big problem and it is necessary that some measures be found before telework is definitely applied.

* increased motivation
If people can work wherever and whenever they want, it is natural they feel themselves more motivated to work. And if they feel more motivated, it is also natural that they produce more. Producing more, in its turn, will make employers and employees more motivated. And this goes round and round in a circle that is sometimes cut by some of the questions and disadvantages I'll point or by an unwise choice of who has a teleworker's profile.

* more time to the family
This is the most frequent motive employees give to become teleworkers. They want to spend more time with their families, specially when children are involved. The 9 to 5 timetable is not compatible with children needs. They have to go to school, they have to have lunch, they frequently need a push to do their homeworks. The time their parents spend commuting, added to the time when they are working, does not leave them much more time together. So, parents, sometimes ask to work at home. That way, working hours can be adapted to the children's needs. However, will that be possible? Or, will the creative hours of teleworkers coincide with the time when children are at home?

* expenses reduction
This is true for both employers and employees. For the first ones, the rents paid are cheaper because of the smaller offices that are needed. For the employees, they just do not have to spend so much money commuting, on public transports or on gas.
But, it is not only just like this. If telework can reduce employers expenses with rents, for example, it can also impose on them very big initial investments (see the disadvantages). And, for the employees, it is not so simple, too. What about the electric light, for instance? And if people are working at home, it is natural that they start spending more water, more electricity and more gas than before. These must be paid. Who pays? And the nannies or the kindergartens, are these also no longer needed and is more money saved? It could probably be so, but this would be very dangerous as will be referred later.

* decrease in traffic
As people are starting to work at home, they just won't have to travel so much in their cars, because even if they work in telecentres, walking will certainly be a good alternative. So, there will be fewer cars on the streets. That will be good for the environment and for the ones who will continue having to go on driving because it is their job, because of their job or simply because they want to.

* easier and better relationship between the client and the employee
Teleworkers will have a more flexible timetable, right? So, it is possible that they change their working hours in order to make a client's life easier. Some people say that a teleworker will be available to their clients 24 hours per day. However, it cannot be forgotten that a total availability leaves behind the teleworker's personal life and the possibility s/he has of forgetting the work worries.

* stress reduction
Not having to leave home and face the every morning traffic is certainly an important reason for the diminishing of stress in those who adopt telework as their method of work. Also, when the work is done from telecentres, the distance to commute is so much smaller that, when driving the boredom is not so much, and when walking this, by itself, reduces the stress while improving the teleworker's health.

* flexible staffing
This is one of the advantages pointed out by those who defend part-time jobs. The problem is: will companies ever want part-time employees? What those people say is that companies may hire employees just when they are needed, having no unnecessary expenses with their salaries when they are not. In my point of view, more important than the question of part-time jobs, is the fact that workers who are not all the time in the same company will hardly share the real spirit of it, and that way will hardly know what is the right move to make when the time comes. Either these people are just doing secretarial tasks, or their presence won't be helping the company, thus running the risk of putting in danger its image. Besides that, telework was thought to catch the best periods of creativity of employees so that they can think of magic moves to change the whole market position of the company they work for: how can temporary employees be able to give ideas for a company they do not feel as their own?

Disadvantages

* possibility of becoming isolated
One of the reasons that may be behind a request to become a teleworker is the fact of having special needs and/or being afraid of socialisation. With that in mind, if those people are allowed to stay at home doing their jobs, they hardly lose that fear and their isolation will become more and more accentuated. It is an employers duty to pay attention to these situations and prevent a total change to telework. One possible solution is the telecentre or a working plan that allows the employee to work at home some days of the week and that makes him go to the office on the others.

* possibility of breaking the relationship between employer and employee
One of the aspects that may constitute a strong determinant of the appearance of a good relation between employer and employee is their frequent contact and the way they communicate, not necessarily with words. If that communication becomes reduced due to the tools available such as telnet, telephone, fax, the complicity is certainly lost and many things are not said, and many things can be misunderstood. For this reason, telework may deter the creation of a relationship between employer and employee, as well as destroy a good relationship that may have existed. Another important factor that can lead to the disruption of the relationships between employers and employees is the fact that telework makes it possible for a person to work for more than one company. For each one of them, s/he will have one different employer and the more employers s/he has, the more difficult it is to maintain the same good and open desirable relationship. It starts immediately with the fact that the employee will certainly want to make secret his/her other jobs.

* great initial investment
If sending workers to do their tasks at home can reduce the cost of office allocation, initially, it will carry a great investment. In fact, it is necessary to acquire lots of PC's and other essential office equipment, and also to install a strongly connected, efficient and trustworthy network (Skyte,1997). All this takes a lot of money!

* younger employees do not acquire discipline and do not receive help from their colleagues
It is usually said that the major sources of knowledge are watching others doing what one is supposed to do and interchanging experience. For these things to happen is necessary that one has someone near to watch what is being done and how it is being done. If the inexperienced worker has no one to follow as a model, these valuable sources are ruined and all the natural process of apprenticeship can be modified and his/her career can never become what it should or could be.
Besides that, when someone finishes school, s/he does not usually have any habits of work, of working hours, of working methods, and this can be a serious concern. Without those habits and those methods, work may become a boring occupation and the results expected may not become a reality. So, there is a serious need to introduce young workers to the working world and that, can almost only be achieved if they are near other more experienced colleagues.

* social isolation
The office conversations between colleagues, during working hours or when coffee time is arrived, is something very valuable. Talking to other people, sharing experiences, discussing different points of view, not only give people new perspectives but also provide them with a vital openness to emerging novelties. A scenario where people start spending most of their time working at home is a little bit scary because most of that rubbish talk is lost and that is the first step towards the narrowing of a person's horizons. The perception of those horizons is what makes a person able to think higher, chasing better solutions for old or new questions, running after little changes that can make the difference between what is their company now and what it can become some years from now.
This problem can also be solved with the telecentres where the conversations could still exist at coffee time or with well thought periodic reunions, formal or informal, when business matters could be discussed but, essentially, where banal talk could take place.

* working hours uncontrolled
Everyone is different. Some are hard-working people, some are not. Some share the company's working methods and spirit, some do not. This must be controlled. An employer cannot allow some workers to overwork, while others do just what is needed to maintain their post. This would be incredibly unfair, even if the hard-working people would be working willingly. The problem is that they would suffer the consequences later in their life.
Because of this is necessary that reasonable time limits are given, so that the tasks should only be accepted on the date indicated and a new task should also be indicated only on that date. That way, the hard-working teleworkers would have to wait until the next task is given, while the others would have to rush a little bit to accomplish the task that was given to them.

* working conditions unsupervised
When someone is working at home, it is very difficult to supervise the way s/he is on his/her chair, the distance s/he maintains from the screen, the time s/he gives between meals, and so on. Although these things can appear to have no special importance, they are of supreme relevance to the company because they can determine the good or bad health conditions of their employees.
Once again, the answer to this problem can be the telecentres that must provide the best working equipment to those working there, without forgetting the responsibility of the employers that must ascertain themselves of those same good conditions before sending their employees to work there.

* stress
It may seem a little bit contradictory to put stress here, as a disadvantage, if the reduction of stress was given as one of the advantages. The problem is that, when people start working at home, their work can invade their home and their privacy. Being available to answer a business related telephone call at any time of the day, or being available to solve any business problem at any time can be a terrifying situation. What may happen is that, inside the teleworker's mind, there may grow a secret desire of leaving his/her own house when out of the obligatory working hours. This can be a source of many family conflicts as result of the absence from home or nervousness felt by the teleworker when at home.

Changes at Home and at the Office

It is not difficult to understand that if some people start working at home, houses must become bigger. The need for a private space where work can become isolated from family and home worries is essential. Outside working hours, the teleworker also needs privacy so that s/he won't have to be constantly reminded of the tasks s/he has to do for the company. So, at least another room is needed for the teleworker. Besides, the characteristics of that room must be carefully chosen. It has to be a room with plenty of natural light during the day, for instance. A good lighting system and an equally good air-conditioned installation, must also be provided. The direct consequence of this extra room and these extra commodities is a price increase.
However, for the companies it will become easier to acquire the always necessary space. As the companies will need fewer locations and those won't need to be so big, their price will decrease in a desperate try, from the constructors and the agencies, to return to the old system. Another possible change, will be the appearance of new neighbourhoods in the suburbs of big cities. When people say that a new life will be born in the little villages, they are probably right. However, that won't certainly be the major alteration: people will continue to move closer to cities. But now, it no longer needs to be to the centre, where the prices are exhurbitant because, thanks to telecentres, for instance, neighbourhoods will be wonderful locations to live. As people will start spending most of their time there they will probably want their neighbourhood to be a nice place to live and as they will have some free time to spend they'll have the chance to involve themselves and be an active part in the construction and maintenance of those places. And there will appear some centres where telecommunications and computer facilities will be offered for those who work at home and need some office work or some office material.

Social Change

Nowadays, life in big cities is like a nightmare. People just do not have time to rest, living a stressful life. The French have an expression that describes this kind of life in the perfection: dodo-metro-boulot (sleep-metro-work). With this living style, it is impossible for one to really enjoy the pleasure it is to be alive (Vacca,1995). And being so, it is even more impossible that one can do ones best on the performed tasks. Being well with oneself it is the first and most important step to achieve a successful professional career. Telework, once accepted as a new way of working, will certainly leave more free time to teleworkers. That way, they will become able to spend that new extra time, to do what they like most, and start discovering what they have missed for so long. The new sensations, the new experiences, will certainly open their eyes to new possibilities to do their tasks and discover new products or new services that can be the turning point of their organisations.
The possibility of working at home is seen for many as an invitation for part-time jobs (Spackman). The fact that they are not supervised and that they just have to deliver the solicited task on the specified day, gives teleworkers the chance of working for different companies at the same time, as they just do not necessarily have to know of each other. However, this brings up a serious problem: what about confidentiality? If a company manager cannot be sure its teleworkers are not selling their services to other companies, it is if natural s/he becomes reluctant. In fact, these days, when a second of advance and a flash of creativity can be the only synonyms of success, companies cannot take that risk light-heartedly. The solution can be in an easily-consulted data base of every employer where their curriculum is available and where his/her actual occupational state is specified. While this is not a reality (will it ever be?), it is possible that the companies give too much work for their employees to perform, so that they have no time left to work for other companies. And this is a serious problem!...
Another question is children. Yes, children. In fact, if the majority of teleworkers are female because they want to be at home taking care of their children, it is natural that they stop putting them in kindergartens, right? It is wonderful that way, they think: they save money while giving all the affection only a mother can give. But kindergartens exist not just because parents are not able to take care of their infants, they also exist, and more important than that, because children must be in contact with other children in order to develop all their capabilities. It is vital for their growing process. Hopefully, parents will be well informed and will have the conscientiousness of this and will keep taking their children to those day care centres. This way, some of the problems of working at home near young children are also over.

Management Style Change

One of the biggest obstacles to telework is the managers' resistance. They are afraid! Yes, and they can be afraid too. It is not only the employees who can be afraid of this change, it is not only the employees who can fear the fact of being far away and possibly alone. Managers are deadly afraid. In fact, and according to a Spanish study, in 1994, in that country, the employees' interest in the telework scenario is of 61.4%, while only 29.6% of the managers show some interest in this change (Lusa,1997). For years, managers thought they were the best. Everyone below them on the hierarchical structure, was dependent upon them. The manager knew best, the others just did what they were told. And now? Freedom must be given, teleworkers must be told to do as they think is best. And if they fail? And if I lose my power? Whom am I going to boss? What have I got to do now?
So many questions rolling on managers heads… And not everyone of them are silly. They have a basis. They have a reason to exist. But if we analyse them carefully, it is possible to see that at the centre of all of them is the change in the relation between managers and employees. Authority must be redefined. It must be understood by both parts that, even being outside the office, the manager is still the manager and reports of what is being done are obligatory and that strategic decisions must be approved by a superior opinion.
The other important change is the kind of management that is no longer directed by sight but by objectives (Ellis,1995; Bell,1995). Teleworkers must be told what is necessary to be done and by what time they are supposed to have the work done. How they did it, when they did it, how quickly they did it, is no one's business.

What about the Employees' Needs?

The employees are the most important asset of a company. Without them, even a very good manager would not be able of doing much for his/her business. But, if a manager wants business to succeed, s/he must go and try to motivate his/her employees. "The role of management in motivation is to instill among employees a deliberation to exert high degrees of effort based on the satisfaction of an individual's needs" (Gohil,1996). And these were the needs subjected to a study by Abraham Maslow, in his work A Theory of Human Motivation (1943). In that study he has drawn a hierarchic pyramid of the employees' needs, where he wanted to make clear that everyone has to pass through a lower level before s/he can climb to a next one and that no one can be at more then one level at the same time.

Taken from (Huitt,1997)

The first and most basic one of these needs is the Physiological need. Everyone, as every animal, has the need for food and shelter. This, in the case of an employee, is fulfilled with a reasonable and guaranteed salary. This is what s/he needs to have. These are the basic living conditions.
Above in the hierarchy, there is the need for Safety and Security. An employee can hardly give his/her best if s/he is afraid of losing the job, or does not have a health insurance, or does not know what to do while performing a certain task. It is essential that his/her place is determined for him and that the right formation is given, so that s/he can stay calm and do his/her best according to what was told. However, people always have doubts about things that might happen. And, while they are working at an office, the answer can be a desk away. But, if they are at home, and they are not very well convinced about the reliability of the network connecting their houses and the headquarters, this can become a serious problem. It is necessary that, before sending them to telework, their employer or manager makes it clear to them that there will always be someone on the other side of the cable to listen to their doubts and problems. This guarantee can also be transmitted by sending the new teleworkers to talk with colleagues of other companies or to see how it all works in the main office of companies where this new scenario is already a success. Additionally, and before this, it is necessary to see if the employee is sufficiently open-minded to carry along with this change. And it can not be forgotten that this is only the second need felt by the employees in this pyramid, and if this is not fulfilled, the employee will hardly continue working for that company.
Next comes the social interaction. Probably the most forgotten need if the employee is left at home. Much care must be taken not to send home a person that, by him/herself, won't get out with friends and does not have at home someone to talk to. Everyone has the need to feel as one belongs to a family. And, many times, that family is represented by one's peers at work. This problem can be overcome with the periodic realisation of business reunions as well as little parties with the mere intention of joining people together and allowing employees and employers to get to know each other (better). Giving permission to work teams is another possible solution.
Almost at the top, come the need of Status. Who does not want to be recognized? Employees need to feel appraised for what they do. "Recognition does not have to be as formal as an 'employee of the month' award. Sometimes a compliment in front of peers will suffice" (Carter,1986). But where are those peers when the employee is working at home, alone? What employer will lose time to send the employee a message congratulating him for his/her performance? These are two simple to solve problems. However, will they just become two more inexistent drawbacks, or not? It is certain that the fact of sending someone home to telework, if done by a conscious employer, is, itself, a compliment, a proof of trust, not only on the employee's experience, but also on his/her skills. But, that can still not be enough… Once in a while a compliment is always welcome.
And, at the top, comes a Self-Actualisation need. This need, although so important as the others, does not have its way of treatment altered by the fact that the employee works outside the office. New challenges and new perspectives must be provided for those who want more. Preventing them to upgrade their knowledge is, almost directly, a way of preventing a company to climb the hill of progress and to take a step further in the way to success. Having the employees work outside the office, makes their timetable more flexible and, consequently, gives them more chances to attend upgrading courses or to visit some other companies. Making it possible for them and advising them to do so, is a wonderful way to fulfil their needs, benefiting at the same time the company.

Personal Opinion

After all this presentation of what is said and thought around the world and, apologising for the small interrogations and personal touch I could not avoid during the essay, it is my turn to give my opinion.
Telework is what has been said. It is all this and its effects will only be known when it turns true. However, it is part of the human nature, to question the present and anticipate the future. So, it is natural that, starting from what is recognised as the human being reactions and what has already been verified with the current applications of telework, a little peek in the future is tried.
From what I have read, I think that, on the whole, telework is a good option. It has many advantages that if well explored and correctly applied can make it a success, and, in my point of view, the most important one is giving employees an alternative to work where they want, where they feel themselves comfortable, when they want but as long as their responsibilities are not forgotten. This will cause the satisfaction among those that, with this, will find other places and times to make their creativity grow and make their capacities flourish. And that is obviously what the companies wish, even if they have not understood it yet. The happiness of their employees is their success because the innovative ideas that will make them successful or maintain them at the top no longer come, obligatorily, from the top of the hierarchic structure. The top managers are not the all-mighty ones. They are as good as anyone else. And that has already been proved. And that is why this scenario is now possible.
In conclusion, telework is a "must" situation because is the next expected step on the path the management style have been trailing.
However, the disadvantages cannot be forgotten. They are too many, and some of them, too much important to be put aside. The social isolation, specially, is something that can put everything at a loss. If telework is meant to give space to people creativity to demonstrate itself in other places, letting people isolate themselves from the world will certainly reduce the capacity to create.
Because of that, I strongly believe, that telework from home is a possible solution but not the best one, at least at full-time. For me, the answer is on telecentres where the whole idea of working whenever one wants is real, where the time spent commuting is short, where no worries are needed about technical assistance and, first of all, where social isolation will hardly be a problem because the coffee machine will always be there... And what about privacy, on those telecentres? If it is privacy about how and when one works, I think that is not a problem. Individual rooms can be provided, for instance! If company's privacy is meant, well, that is different. However, employees must be trusted. Companies must believe their workers, must trust that they won't tell other companies what they are doing. And data protection may mot be a problem as long as teleworkers work directly connected to their company's server.

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