Deployment of Telework in European Public Administrations

3.3. Aspects of Participation and Partnership
Staff members or their representatives of four out of fifteen organisations have not participated in
the decision-making processes for the introduction of telework. In the remaining cases
‘participation’ has been understood and has taken place in different ways; three interviewees
mentioned the voluntary character of telework as a mode of participation. In one case a
questionnaire was sent out to the employees. In three cases we find consultation offered to the
employees, staff meetings or joint committees of employers and staff. In six cases from Austria,
Denmark, Germany, Italy, Sweden and the UK the union's role was explicitly highlighted.
69
In four
of these cases agreement between employer and the union's representatives was sought and found
already in the early stages of planning the pilots, in one case which is in an early phase of
introduction the union and the management are still negotiating. In another of the latter cases a
union figured as the initiator of the telework pilot.
3.4. Organisational change*
The most common form of telework among our cases is alternating home-based telework
practised by 17 organisations related to 20 valid responses. 14 interviewees name it as the only
or dominating practice to work at a distance. 50% of our sample practise a ‘telework mix’
(homebased, remote office sites, telecentres, mobile). In two out of eight cases work is merely
decentralised to remote office sites; in one case to 80%, in an other to 50%. Nomadic work was
found in only three cases. Telecentres are used by four administrations: the Municipality of Rome,
the administration of the Government of Upper Austria, and two of our three British cases.
Pict. 3: 
Type of Telework (absolute figures, multiple choice was possible)
55