Deployment of Telework in European Public Administrations

7
ibid.
8
DIPLOMAT, AC 222, ‘The European Charter for Telework’, http://www.telework-forum.org/diplomat, 1997. 

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There might be better and more precise definitions and - according to different views - more
wishful ones. However, the loose definition we used is valuable in allowing the various factors
behind different modes of understanding about the meaning of ‘telework’ (technology, order of
time and place, occupational status) to be identified.
One also has to face a variety of different terms according to different national backgrounds, i.e.
‘telework’, ‘distance work’ (Sweden) or ‘telecommuting’ (USA). Despite of slight differences in
the concept, these terms are used synonymously in this report.
There are several categories for the delocalisation of work performance in flexible and ICT-based
work understood as telework:
1.
Alternating or multi-site teleworking, which is partly based in the office and partly in the
home.
2.
Tele-homeworking, which is based wholly in the home.
3.
Work from telecentres.
4.
Mobile or nomadic teleworking.
5.
Work from satellite or remote offices.
9
It is mainly the category of ‘satellite and remote offices’ which produces analytical problems in
the case of public administrations. Here a clear distinction between ‘telework’ and electronic
networking or tele-cooperation can not be easily drawn.
Is the electronic transmission of information from remote office A to the headquarters B to be
classified as telework or as the prolongation of a traditional work pattern improved and
accelerated by technical means? Which criteria would denote it as telework: the proximity of the
remote office to the civil servant's home or flexible working hours or the quantity or quality of the
information transferred?