Deployment of Telework in European Public Administrations

Part Three: Comparisons and Conclusions
73
see Huuthanen, Pekka (1996), p. 2.
74
compare Bibby, Andrew (1996), p. 20/21.

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of work it seems as if individual contracts
75
tended to re-emphasise asymmetrically the
responsibility of the teleworking individual. This does not necessarily imply an actual increased
individual burden. Often the employees' duties as regulated by labour law might be duplicated.
Such aspects are the employees' duties regarding confidentiality of information, using the
equipment carefully or only for professional reasons, the burden of proof that injuries took place
in the context of work, and the employees' contribution to prevention regarding OHS.
Training
Most of our interviewees became rather vague when asked about training facilities. In nearly one
third of the bureaucracies specific training for teleworkers had not been offered. Nearly all of the
others restricted training to technical issues and offered it only initially. One of the organisations
enriched training with aspects of ergonomy, another one considered time management and general
communicative skills. Deficits became even more obvious when we asked about training for the
managers of telework trials and schemes. It has been considered only by six of 15 bureaucracies,
information on contents and frequency of training was marginal.
Pict. 7: 
Monitoring and Training provided
(absolute figures)
When confronting facilities for training with a high number of monitoring measures, it seems as
if knowledge about teleworkers gained more importance than giving knowledge to them. Internal
evaluation at the German Federal Ministry of Education and Science showed that the teleworkers
for themselves particularly defined the need for training in time management (63% of the
interviewed) and work organisation (58%). Skills regarding software (40%) and hardware (21%)
have been significantly less demanded.