Book Reviews
Managing Telework: Perspectives from Human Resource Management and Work Psychology
Kevin Daniels, David A Lamond and Peter Standen
ISBN: 978-1-861525-72-7 2000 182 pages CENGAGE Lrng Business Press
Judy Mercure
CEO, Calibre Communications, Avalon NSW
Teleworking offers a number of benefits to organizations and individuals – among them, office rental costs savings, work flexibility, reduced worker commuting time, and frequently job autonomy and increased productivity. As a result, it is on the increase, with a number of teleworkers in Europe growing from 2 million to 4 million in 1997-1998 alone.
With growing interest in 'virtual organizations' and 'virtual research and development teams', the importance of understanding how to mange telework and teleworkers is evident for research and technology-based organizations that often have the highly educated, independent staff and the sophisticated information technology (IT) infrastructure needed for effective teleworking.
Thompson Learning has recently published a small (182pp) text which is a clear primer on behavioral issues associated with telework.
Managing Telework has been edited by three teleworking experts with backgrounds in management, organizational behavior, and psychology. It is intended for occupational psychologists, human resource managers and management consultants who manage and develop teleworking schemes.
It will be particularly helpful for managers who are developing fundamental teleworking staff management strategies and policies for their organizations, and who want to understand when teleworking can be best applied in their organization, what kinds of tasks are best suited to teleworking, and what kinds of individuals make the best teleworkers.
Because the perspective is unashamedly behavioral, financial and information systems managers looking for hard data to support projections of the potential benefit the organization may more profitably look elsewhere. This is a book for organizations that are reasonably advanced in their thinking about the value of telework and keen to develop human resource implementation strategies that will get the best results from the right people.
In 1997-1998 alone, the number of teleworkers in Europe doubled from two million to four million.
The editors have assembled a suite of chapters written by authors from Europe, Australia and New Zealand. These authors examine organizational and task characteristics that determine how suitable teleworking may be for an organization. Factors they consider include the IT and telecommunications infrastructure (links between home/mobile computers, faxes, modems, phones, WWW sites) available to the organization.
The 'knowledge intensity' of the tasks to be undertaken by teleworkers and how much communicaiton those workers require, both internally and externally, determine how effective teleworking may be for any given organization. Problems of motivating and evaluating the performance of teleworkers, individual worker's personality and their suitability for telework, the effects of telework on worker health and productivity, and the effects of telework on the home environment are among the issues treated in this book.
Following a consideration in the first part of the book of issues to be taken into account, the book offers some useful strategies for implementing telework in organizations, including offering a systemic approach to selecting good potential teleworkers.
It provides models of resources that may encourage teleworker performance, socialization, training and development – often neglected for workers who are not visible in an office every day.
Considerable space is devoted to training and development at a distance, and performance management strategies, including for organizations that may have 'low trust' cultures.
The book offers a number of case studies of companies that have successfully implemented teleworking strategies. These include Digital Equipment, which recruits employees with good communications skills who operate easily in virtual teams with a minimum of direction from above. The company has concluded that members of a virtual team must be well-educated and require above-average networking skills.
Arco Chemical Europe has developed training activities to encourage team-building among employees who may otherwise rarely meet one another, relying heavily upon video conferencing.
The British Council works hard to establish a corporate culture to link together 6000 people in 109 countries, using roadshows for employees in different countries.
British Telecom has determined that younger virtual team members appear to have less resistance to teleworking, based upon their early experience in teamworking in schools. The organization has suggested that these employees are less likely to believe that 'information is power' and to resist sharing information than some of their older colleagues.
Other organizations profiled that have changed human resource system to adapt to teleworking include Allied Signal, Andersen Consulting, Chevron, and Lotus Development. Among those strategies are virtual employee marketplaces where resource providers and project managers shop for talent.
The 'knowledge intensity' of the tasks to be undertaken by teleworkers and how much communication those workers require, both internally and externally, determine how effective teleworking may be for an organization.
The book is clear, easy to read and digest, and makes a sound contribution to human resource planning and policy development.
Published by Business Press (Thompson Learning), London
ISBN 1861525729, March 2000, Paperback.
Contact: www.thomsonlearning.co.uk.
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