ways2work > How to do it > Re-thinking commuting > Reducing commuting through ICT > Where can telework be carried out?
Where can telework be carried out?
Teleworking doesn't necessarily mean working from home. Here we briefly sketch the range of workplace options for teleworking.
Working from home
Working from home is the most common form of teleworking, but its extent varies.
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Many people who describe themselves as teleworkers only work from home in the evenings and at weekends. They are known as "occasional teleworkers". Their workstyle is different to more frequent teleworkers. They undertake a regular commute, so do not reduce their carbon footprint and they do not suffer from the principal issues of teleworking already described
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Part-time telework (working from home at least one day a week) is the most common form of telework. About one and three quarter million Britons telework this way
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About three-quarters of a million Britons telework full-time from home. Teleworking to this extent as an employee is difficult without preparatory training. These teleworkers contribute most to reducing their carbon footprint, because they do not have an alternative office desk. They are likely to have a formal agreement with their employer, or be owners of SMEs.
Hot desking
Hot desking refers to the practice of employees time-sharing a pool of office desks rather than each having a permanent desk. A teleworker will typically work at home some days of the week and use a hot desk in the office on others. Because a permanent desk is not retained for every employee, hot desking reduces the cost and carbon footprint of office premises. Key to successful hot desking is an efficient booking system, and the practice of honouring bookings so that desks are available when expected.
Touch-down areas
Hot desking can be associated with touch-down areas. Alongside the time-shared desks are meeting rooms, photocopiers, specialist computing equipment, lounge areas, secretarial services etc. A teleworker or mobile worker can use these facilities even if they do not sit at a hot desk.
Telecottages and their descendants
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Telecottages
are the ancestors of all the forms of not-office, not-home teleworking facilities. These are places, often in rural areas, that provide a local community with somewhere to work from, but also the ICT to support that work. They may also offer coaching and training services. Telecentres are a term for telecottage that is more common outside the UK
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Virtual offices
provide a rentable, ICT-equipped workplace and meeting rooms (and also to receive mail and calls and undertake administrative support). They are useful for teleworkers who cannot work from home or for teleworkers to meet to work together. They can offer a useful facility for organisations that have closed offices in an area, but need to support its staff living locally
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Cyber-cafés
are 'drop-in' commercial sites that provide refreshments and ICT (although today are more likely just to provide Wi-Fi network access on a bring-your-own-laptop basis). They offer a teleworker somewhere to work without being home alone. They also offer mobile workers somewhere to connect from
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Hot spots
are places in hotels and travel areas that offer the Wi-Fi facilities of cyber-cafés but sometimes without the café
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Jellys
are ways in which teleworkers / mobile workers organise themselves to work in the same place at the same time. Emerging from San Francisco, and called Jellys for no particular reason, their role is to reduce teleworkers' social isolation. A site is chosen, often a cyber-café or a Wi-Fi equipped public area, and teleworkers turn up with their laptops to work together
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Co-working arrangements (or sometimes "hubs")
are physically a hybrid between a virtual office and a cyber-café. Like the former they are specifically designed for work, rather than refreshment, but like the latter have more of a drop-in ethos. Some have a set of values around social innovation.
Mobile working
The term 'mobile working' tends to be used in place of 'teleworking' by people who want to use a modern term. Strictly, however, if teleworking refers to working someplace (the home), mobile working refers to working anyplace. Thus mobile workers may use home as a base, and also use any of the workplaces described above, as well as customer premises.