'There are two big issues with teleworking social interaction and technology. If there is no social interaction, then people will miss out, especially in a high-tech organisation such as ours. There is also the business issue. A lot of teams need to work together to sort things out, and this is best done face-to-face. Video-conferencing could be the answer but the infrastructure is simply not available in the UK. The second issue is technology. People working from home on a PC need high-speed telephone lines at a reasonable cost. We need BT to let in competitors. Its own lines, ADSL, have had a very slow roll-out. Its been very disappointing. Where people have taken them up, they have encountered a lot of problems, which has had an impact on their ability to work from home. There is definitely a need to open up the marketplace. The alternative is cable, which is very good and much cheaper than ADSL. The US, Asia, and even the rest of Europe are miles ahead of the UK in this respect, partly because they have more competition.
Malcolm Higgs, Henley Management College
I dont think that teleworking is going to become the big thing some people initially said it would, but it will provide workers with greater flexibility. Ive heard mixed views about it. Some people like it because its very flexible, but others really miss the human contact. Also I know that it is supposed to be good for the work-life balance, but what some people find is that work comes into your life and crosses the line. I suppose that some people might be better at it than others. For example, very extrovert people might feel isolated, while the more introverted people would feel happier at home. There are also practical problems. Some people are better with technology than others. Computers are fantastic when they work, but not when they go wrong. You wouldnt have any support at home. I think the idea of people working exclusively from home is unlikely to be successful, but that most people would like to have the option sometimes. We are moving away from the old idea that you can only be working if you are in the office, and teleworking has extended the range of working arrangements possible in the new culture. But would I want to do it? No, I personally couldnt stand it.
Larry Hochman, European speaker of the year and former director of Air Miles and British Airways
Work-life balance will be the biggest driver of career choice in the future. It probably already is. Do you have a director of work-life balance? If not, you should certainly consider it. This is a life-or-death issue. Teleworking will certainly play a significant role in the workplaces of the future. The main reason it has been slow to be realised is that most businesses dont really have a process to identify those individuals who can indeed thrive in this ambience. If the fit is wrong, between the job to be done and the personal objectives of the staff members doing it, it is bound to fail. The question that really has to be asked is: What has my business done to construct a process that can identify the people who fit this kind of working? If that question is not answered honestly, you will forever have square-pegged individuals in round-holed jobs, who are doomed to fail.
