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Teleworking

Health and safety issues As yet, most research relates mainly to home-based teleworking, where the following health and safety issues have been identified. Existing legal rights to privacy in the home make it difficult for employers and control bodies to check for compliance with health and safety standards. Limited space in the home may stand in the way of adequate workspace design as regards ventilation, light, noise, equipment, etc. Occupational accidents are harder to define when they occur in the home. Lack of regulation and isolation may expose workers to long working hours and unknown stresses. Isolation may also exclude them from training, collective negotiations and the right to information and consultation.

Telework may be broadly defined as work undertaken by an individual for an employer or client that is mostly performed at a location other than the traditional workplace, using information/telecommunications technology. It can encompass a variety of working arrangements, including home-working; telecottages/telecentres; and working from satellite offices in different locations. Teleworkers may be company employees or self-employed.

The recent EIRO comparative report Telework in the European Union looks at issues concerning the employment and working conditions of teleworkers - such as health and safety, data protection, access to training and the voluntary nature of telework.

The Fourth European Working Conditions Survey (2005) reveals that about half of the working population in the EU works at their place of work all of the time. Only 2.07% of male and 2.1% of female workers stated in 2005 that their main job involved working at home with a personal computer all or almost all of the time.