Deployment of Telework in European Public Administrations

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Deployment of Telework in European Public Administrations: An Overview

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3.7. Tasks*
In nine of 22 organisations secretarial functions for a few days per week are carried out from
places other than the main office. In eight organisations we find highly skilled jobs at the top of
tasks conducted at a distance: managerial and organisational activities, writing of reports,
computer services and research. Data entry as a typically low skilled job is rarely decentralised.
Accountancy and financial services also tend to remain within the headquarters which, in single
cases, is due to a lack of solutions for data protection.
Internal reports show that in well organised pilots, public administrations following the models of
major private companies, tend to base decisions about what type of work is carried out at a
distance on the question of which type of personality is applicable to telework. Indeed, personal
profiles regarding self-discipline, communicative and organisational talents and so on.. play an
important role for the individual and organisational success and failure of telework practice.
Whereas the consideration of pre-conditions of personal attitudes is part of the organisational
common sense, at the same time knowledge about the teleworkability of specific jobs is rather
vague and sometimes a matter of differing opinions between either lower and higher ranks, or IT
experts and personnel managers. Only in a very few cases of large bureaucracies have external
consultants given a structuring guidance. In many of the pilots the teleworkability of tasks is a
question to be found out in ‘learning by doing’ processes.
Here, findings of a Canadian study on administrations in a large private firm
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might give valuable
support. Although personality may be an important factor, it is rather the job structure that
determines, if work is adjustable to computerised telework. The authors classified work processes
as ‘hot’ and ‘cool’ to classify the range of control over time and space dimensions of work:
‘Teleworkers with cool work processes are not required to respond to others right away. They can
decide on their own when and how long to work, and whether to work at home or elsewhere. In
contrast, teleworkers in hot jobs must be available for communication and respond immediately
to queries and demands of others. As a result, they have little control over the variety of times and
places they work.’
Therefore, employees in ‘cool jobs’ are better suited to the potential of self-control over their
work arrangements that telework might allow. Telework and bureaucratic telework itself can
further ‘cool down’ work, where procedures link individual workers to each other through
computer mediated spreadsheets or data bases.