Work and Family in the Ework Era

WORK AND FAMILY IN THE eWORK ERA

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Work and Family in the eWork Era

Kevin Cullen Work Research Centre Ltd, Ireland

Norbert Kordey empirica, Germany

Lars Schmidt Danish Technological Institute, Denmark and

Elena Gaboardi Databank Consulting, Italy

IOS Press

Ohmsha

Amsterdam • Berlin • Oxford • Tokyo • Washington, DC

© 2003, The Authors AH rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted. in any form or by any means, without prior written permission from the publisher. ISBN 1 58603 310 7 (IOS Press) ISBN 4 274 90566 7 C3055 (Ohmsha) Library of Congress Control Number: 2002115740

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Contents CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5

About the FAMILIES project The FAMILIES project in context Structure of the book Partners Acknowledgements

1 2 3 3 3

CHAPTER 2. TRENDS AND ISSUES FOR WORK AND FAMILY LIFE 2.1

2.2 2.3 2.4

2.5

New work forms 2.1.1 Part-time work 2.1.2 Change in company structures 2.1.3 Change in location of work 2.1.4 Type of contract 2.1.5 Self employment 2.1.6 Retirement age Families and their structure Technology and new forms of work 2.3.1 Types of eWork Families and new forms of work 2.4.1 Work intensification 2.4.2 Work-life balance 2.4.3 Teleworking as a means of reconciling work and family 2.4.4 Gender differences in relation to paid and unpaid work 2.4.5 Gender and telework 2.4.6 Gender and motivation to telework 2.4.7 Impact of teleworking on families Conclusion

5 5 6 6 6 6 7 7 9 9 11 11 11 12 12 13 13 14 14

CHAPTER 3. RESULTS FROM THE FAMILY SURVEY 3.1

3.2 3.3 3.4 3.5

The FAMILIES analytic framework 3.1.1 Family types 3.1.2 eWorking arrangements 3.1.3 Impact at the work-family interface The FAMILY survey Approach and methods 3.3.1 Sampling frame Finding the sample Methods 3.5.1 Process of undertaking the case studies

15 15 15 16 17 18 18 19 19 20

3.6

3.7 3.8

3.9 3.10

3.11 3.12

3.13 3.14

3.15

Sampling objectives and achievements 3.6.1 Family-types 3.6.2 Work-types Other characteristics of the sample The diversity of cases and reasons for eWorking 3.3.1 The variety of actual cases 3.8.2 Reasons for adoption Results from the survey Global views on the eWork arrangements 3.10.1 Overall satisfaction 3.10.2 Suitability for family needs 3.10.3 Sustainabilitv Work-related factors Practical aspects of time and place 3.12.1 Commuting 3.12.2 Work-related visitors to the home 3.12.3 Home workspaces 3.12.4 Boundary management in time and place 3.12.5 The variety of impacts of time and place Psychosocial impacts Distribution of costs and benefits 3.14.1 Overall winners and losers — Work or family? 3.14.2 Impact on (gendered) roles in relation to family work 3.14.3 Costs and benefits for the different stakeholders Technology at the workfamily interface 3.15.1 Work-related technology in the home 3.15.2 Technology to help deal with family matters whilst working away from the home

CHAPTER 4. WORK FAMILY SCENARIOS FOR THE eWORK ERA

20 21 22 24 28 28 29 32 33 33 34 34 35 39 39 39 40 41 41 43 46 46 47 48 56 56 57

58

CHAPTER 5. EMERGENT ISSUES AND THEMES 5.1

The right place at the right time? — eWork's impacts on where and when work is done 5.2 Why do it? — Reasons for adoption of eWork 5.3 Different levels and types of impact 5.4 Winners and losers — Who or what benefits from eWork 5.5 Labour market and career issues — Down-shifting, up-shifting and self-employment 5.6 Dreams and realities — The advantages and disadvantages of working from home 5.7 The importance of reversibility — eWorking should not be life sentence 5.8 Neither here nor there, neither one thing nor the other — Managing the boundaries 5.9 The perceptions of others 5.10 Who's minding the children? — No substitute for childcare 5.11 Back to the future, back to the kitchen sink? — Sharing of household duties 5.12 Doing it (all) yourself — Lone parent families

70 74 77 78 80 82 83 83 84 86 88 90

5.13 5.14 5.15 5.16 5.17 5.18 5.19

Working and caring — Families with dependants who have special needs Couples without children Single people The role of technology Sharing ISTs between work and family — Conflict or synergy? Techno-futures: technology at the work-family interface Useful supports — What could facilitate the diffusion and sustainability of eWorking 5.20 The centrality of gender — As always! 5.21 National variations 5.22 Conclusions

91 93 94 94 95 97 97 99 101 102

CHAPTER 6. IMPLICATIONS FOR POLICY AND RECOMMENDATIONS 6.1 6.2 6.3

6.4

6.5 6.6 6.7 6.8

About the recommendations 6.1.1 The policy space addressed by FAMILIES Policy recommendations for action Policy makers 6.3.1 Actions supporting reconciliation 6.3.2 Actions supporting quality of work and equal opportunities 6.3.3 Actions supporting RTD and Information Society Policies Employers 6.4.1 Actions supporting reconciliation 6.4.2 Actions supporting quality of work Trade unions Citizens and Families organisations RTD priorities for Europe's 6th Framework Programme Proposal for new eWorking Statistical Indicators 6.8.1 Quantitative indicators 6.8.2 Qualitative indicators

104 104 105 105 105 107 108 109 110 111 113 114 115 117 118 120

BIBLIOGRAPHY

121

APPENDIX 1: CASE STUDIES

123

Project funded by the European Community under the 'Information Society Technology' Programme (1998-2002) IST-1999-14115

I

Chapter 1 Introduction This book is the first to look at the implications for work-family balance arising from trends in work organisation in the Information Society. Key changes are occurring in the place and time of work, supported by Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs). These new eWorking arrangements include more work being done from the home and an increased requirement for working at non-standard times because of globalisation and the development of the 24-hour society. Such changes in the time and place of work have potentially profound implications for family life. More flexibility in time and place can offer new opportunities for work-family balance and add to the current repertoire of family-friendly options for the worker. But changes in the place and time of work may not always provide more flexibility or may have other downsides for family life. This book presents the results of a study of these developments in four European countries - Ireland, Germany, Denmark and Italy - representing four quite different cultural contexts. It provides an analysis of key issues and trends, illustrated by over 90 in-depth case studies of eWorkers and their families. The cases cover key forms of eWork (such as working from home, shihorking in new eoccupations and on-call work) and types of family (couples with children, couples without children, single parent families, families caring for older of disabled dependants). The book is expected to be of interest to a wide audience, including policymakers, employers and managers, trade unions and other organisations representing eWorkers and, of course, eWorkers and their families themselves.

1.1 About the FAMILIES project FAMILIES is a study funded under Key Action I1 (New Methods of Work and Electronic Commerce) of the European Union's Information Society Technologies (IST) Programme. The project spans the period September 2000 to May 2002. The emergence of an Information Society is accelerating the development and deployment of new work methods, including flexible, mobile and remote working. Apart from the implications for business, employing organisations and workers as individuals, these changes have potentially profound implications for families. Likewise, the receptivity or otherwise of families to the new work methods can facilitate or constrain the rate of difhion of these innovations. The difksion of new work methods is also linked to the more general adoption of ICT-based systems and services in the home and these can mutually reinforce or inhibit one another. Choosing the family as a unit of analysis also brings gender issues very much to the fore, and allows consideration of the requirements of women, men, and children, and of the quality of life and the quality of working life. For these reasons we need a deeper understanding of the interactions between new ICT-based working methods and families. The overall aim of the study is to contribute to the success of the IST programme by providing state-of-the-art data and analysis on the interactions between new ICT-based work methods and the needs and circumstances of families in Europe. Although it is clear that families are central to the adoption and diffusion of the new work methods and, conversely, that the new work methods can impact on families for better or for worse, there remain

2

Chapter I . Introduction

fundamental uncertainties regarding the fall-out of these new work-fmily interactions. For example: 1. What types of family structure and circumstances are conducive to or inhibit the adoption of new ICT-based work methods? 2. What are the positive impacts, but also the potentially negative impacts on different family types of diiTerent variants of the new work methods? 3. What types of supports would help families to better exploit the new opportunities?

4. What are the implications for labour market participation rates of different groups? 5 . How will family adoption of new work methods influence the adoption of other ICT-based systems and services, and vice versa? 6. How can RTD and policy be focused to support an optimal balance between economic and social cost-benefits in this area, including improvements to the quality of fmily life and the design and implementation of family-friendly policies? The specific objectives of the project are to: 1. Systematically and comprehensively define the key interactions between different types of family and the different forms of new ICT-based work methods 2. Empirically investigate these interactions as they arise for real families in four countries representing some of the main family cultures in Europe (Germany. Italy. Denmark and Ireland) 3. Define the policy and RTD implications arising from the analytic and empirical work. and make recommendations for action on the basis of these 4. Eff'ectively disseminate the results to key targets inside and outside the IST programme

1.2 The FAMILIESproject in context The interactions between families, new forms of work and new technology, like ICT, are profound and deeply significant for a large and growing proportion of people across Europe. The FAMILIES research project has been careful, by building on existing research, to take for the first time an in-depth, up-to-date snapshot of how families in four contrasting European countries are reacting to the new opportunjties and challenges. The context in which the FAMILIES research has been undertaken must be seen across a number of areas, including new forms of ICT-based work (such as eWork), gender studies, work-life balance, family studies generally, and work reorganisation and flexibilisation. Thus. although the area of interest is potentially vast, it must be said that little detailed and focused work on families and new work forms per se (seen from the perspective of the family and not the workplace) currently exists. There are notable exceptions, of c o w , referred to elsewhere in this project, but the general lack of focused study constituted one of the main reasons for the FAMILIES research to be undertaken in the first place. What we do know from previous studies is that families' reaction to new work forms is often conditioned by f d l y type, e.g. the composition of the family and its structure. degree of fragmentation, socialisation (especially of children). relationships between school. home and work, etc. Complex changes of roles and relationships often take place, at least partly influenced by ICT. which can, in circumstances resulting from the freeing up of family time and routines. enable roles to be both switched and strengthened. Issues of autonomy and

Chapter I. Introduction

3

power are also very important. Primary amongst these is typically gender, where European research shows both change and reinforcement under different conditions. Gender also has a wider dimension, for example in relation to work brought into the home (e.g. through homebased eWork), or new forms of mobile work and other combinations of time and place flexibility which inevitably has both direct and indirect effects on families and family life. Further, there is much evidence that some forms ofeWork in Europe such as telework are still very much the preserve of high skill, high income, high autonomy individuals (although this is changing). The incidence of ‘free-agent’ telework, for example, is much less than in the US, but can be expected to grow significantly in the hture. National and even regional variations are extremely important in Europe. There are clear and documented differences, for example, between the north and the south of Europe as well as between European ‘cultural realms’. Included in definitions of these are, of course, institutional structures, levels of financial and other forms of support for individuals and families, and differences in life style. The views expressed in this book are those of the authors and not those of the European Commission. The European Commission is not responsible for any use made of the data appearing in this book.

1.3 Structure of the book ‘Work and Family in the eWork Era’ is divided into six chapters. Following the introduction, Chapter 2 presents trends and issues for work and family life from leading authors and reports from sociological, organisational, technological and psychological perspectives. Chapter 3 presents the main results fiom over one hundred in-depth family surveys from Ireland, Germany, Denmark and Italy and Chapter 4 provides snapshots of families in the context of the eWork era. Chapter 5 identifies and discusses key emergent issues and themes from the case studies which are W h e r supported by examples from the case studies. The final chapter ‘Implications for policy and recommendations’ draws together the lessons learned fiom the FAMILIES project about the experiences of different types of families with different types of eWork in the four European countries.

1.4 Partners Ireland:

Work Research Centre

Germany: empirica GmbH Denmark: Danish Technological Institute Italy:

Databank Consulting

1.5 Acknowledgements This book could not have been written without the support of the European Commission, which funded major parts of the research upon which this book is based. The FAMILIES partners wish to express their gratitude for the help and support of Mr Peter Johnson and Ms Heidi Seybert of the European Commission, Directorate-General Information Society, Information Society Technologies: New Working Methods and Electronic Commerce and to following Project Reviewers: Professor Gerard Valenduc, TU-

4

Chapter I . Introduction

Foundation Travail-Universite, Work and Technology Research Unit, Belgium, Dr Fernando Gallardo Olmedo, Grupo Calirio Arlaban, Spain and Dr Mirta Michilli, Helios ICT Management, United Kingdom. We are extremely grateful to all the organisations and individuals who fkcilitated in finding over one hundred diverse worklfmily cases and to the families themselves who shared their time and experience with our interviewers in order for the FAMILIES project to learn more about work and f'amily in the eWork era. We are also grateful to the network of experts. which provided valuable insights throughout the lifetime of the project. For additional information on the FAMILIES project. please refer to the Website www.families-proiect.com

5

Chapter 2 Trends and issues for work and family life This chapter discusses the main trends and issues for work and family life, in particular four central themes, i.e. new work forms, families and their structure, technology and new work forms and families and new work forms.

2.1 New workforms The traditional worker is typically classified as a full-time employee who works for the same company for life and whose working times can best be described as ‘9-5’, with 35-40 hours per week being the normal working time. Business requirements in increasingly volatile markets, the personal preferences of employees and the widespread d i h i o n of information and communication technology (ICT) play a major role in the shift from this traditional model of working towards one which involves more flexible work patterns. A variety of new working arrangements have become an integral practice in established businesses including flexitime, part-time work, temporary work contracts and early retirement. In addition, ICT and the Internet have facilitated the promotion of new work concepts. Work and the worker are now fiee of the constraints of time and place and work can be conducted at any time and remotely from the employer (in any place). For the corporate sector this means information processing work can be outsourced both within and across the boundaries of countries with homeworkers at one end of the spectrum and telecentres or call centres in Asia or elsewhere at the other. For the individual these new work forms provide freedom of choice in how to organise hisher lifestyle, work times and location. The following section considers some of the factors that have influenced caused changes in work patterns. 2.1.1

Part-time work

In the last number of decades part-time employment has grown and it is predicted that this trend will continue in the future giving rise to a situation where Ill-time employment may even become an exception. Part-time work helps people combine paid work and domestic commitments and is more prevalent amongst women than men. The Netherlands is the world leader in part-time working where 30% ofthe population are part-time workers. The UI( also has a relatively high proportion of part-time workers (23%) while Ireland, Denmark, Germany and Belgium are in the mid-range with figures ranging from 16% to 18%. Spain, Greece, Finland and Portugal and Italy can be found at the bottom of the range with rather low percentages (between 7.7% and 11.2%) of part-time employees. There is a wide variety of part-time working models already in existence today. These include models where working times have become flexible during the day, month or year. Some examples of part-time work include job sharing (where two people share one job), job splitting (where two people fill one post, but each performs a discrete set of tasks), fixed part-time hours (these may be a set

6

Chapter 2 Trends and Issues for Work and Farnilri Life

number of hours per week or per month carried out at a set time). annualised hours and working during school terms only.

2.1.2

Change in company structures

Companies have been undergoing radical changes in structure and in the way they perform their business processes. Hierarchical chains of management have been replaced with flatter management structures. Business processes have been re-engineered to include a number of decentralised, smaller units which often become integrated in co-operation networks in order to operate efyectively and eficiently. In an effort to reduce costs associated with overheads. such as of'fice space and labour, companies are completely outsourcing some business activities often across geographical boundaries. 2.1.3

Change in location of work

In parallel, a dislocation of workers to non-central locations (e.g. teleworking from home) is taking place on a broader scale than in the late 1980s and early 1990s. A number of factors have had a positive impact on the wider and faster diffusion of telework in recent years. For example, in the case of employers a reduction in costs associated with overheads such as office space or an increase in employee productivity; for workers the flexibility of work location and time, relief from commuting hassles, better work-life balance. and/or more generally the availability of cost-effective technological solutions in ICTs and telecommunications. 2.1.4

Type of contract

Traditionally, workers in Europe have been hll-time employes, employed by organisations under a contract of employment and therefore enjoying the benefits of social security systems protecting them against losses in earnings in cases of illness and disablement. However, a number of changes have become apparent with an increasing number of temporary employment contracts, agency workers, use of self-employed workers, outsourcing of labour etc. All of these employment variants and customer-contractor relationships make use of different forms of contractual options which are known and already in use today but have so far not been as popular as full-time contracts of employment. Some European governments (e.g. in Germany and France) have shown a tendency to protect traditional contract of employment models with which people are familiar and feel happy, whilst making atypical employment models less attractive. However there are concerns that such attempts to constrain labour market flexibility might result in companies recruiting the required workers or services abroad. 2.1.5

Self employment

The rate of self-employment among 'white collar workers' or workers in the knowledge and information processing areas is increasing continuously. A number of developments are likely to have contributed to this trend, including increased outsourcing of services and functions by large corporations. the rapidly increasing household penetration of ICTs. domestic access to the Internet and the desire for own business creation. Factors that will further influence this development include the expansion of SMEs networks nationally and

Chapter 2. Trends and Issues,for Work and Family Life

7

internationally by networking with other SMEs and individual workers. It has been argued that self-employment instead of employee status will be the work relationship of many in the future. According to the proponents of this hypothesis, in the future school and university leavers, in particular, could find themselves in a situation where self-employment will be the only chance for getting a job. It is envisaged that in some countries, e.g. the UK, more likely than in others, even people currently working under a contract of employment will be pushed into the status of self-employed. 2.1.6

Retirement age

The retirement age has been continuously reduced over the past decades. Traditionally, workers completed their working life and retired at the age of 60, 63 or 65. An increasing number of workers have taken up early retirement schemes, which exist in many larger organisations and public administrations. As a result in many cases a person’s working life time span has been reduced to the age of 58 or even further to avoid redundancy and to increase the chances of school and university leavers of finding jobs in industry and public administration. This trend towards earlier retirement is likely to be reversed in the future. A significant influencing factor will be the demographic pressures associated with an ageing population and the resultant concerns about tightening labour markets and how to meet pension payments. Another factor is that the growing number of self-employed workers are likely to retire later, partly because of a traditional tendency fbr the self-employed to continue working to a later age and partly because an increasing number of self-employed workers will be forced to extend their working life because of insufficient payments into pension schemes.

2.2 Families and their structure The family as an institution is a universal feature of all human societies, although presenting in very diverse forms throughout history and in different cultural and ethnic situations. In the current context, the focus is upon the family in developed economies (so called industrial, and now post-industrial, societies) and specifically in Europe, although there are many similarities to the North American situation. Historically in the developed economies, two main types of family have been distinguished: nuclear family - consisting ofwife/mother, husbandfather and their children; i.e. two generations and two married adults (also known as conjugal, elementary or immediate family); extended family - consisting of the nuclear family, plus other adults related by blood to at least one adult in the nuclear family, and any children these other adults have. Thus an extended family can consist of two or more nuclear families. Many extended families also have one or more grandparents, so that they can consist of three (sometimes four) generations. Today families in developed economies along with many other social and economic institutions are changing in dramatic ways. The nuclear family (married couple with or without children) constitutes no more than about 50% of European households. A large number of other familyhousehold permutations are now increasingly common: one person - adult living alone. This includes the whole range from young people undertaking W h e r or higher education, adults who have chosen not to enter into a

8

Chapter 2. Trends and Issues.for Work and Fami[v Li/e

0

0

0

couple relationship, adults who are separated. divorced or widowed. The latter includes, of come, older people. couples - two adults, normally of the opposite sex, living together as a couple, with or without children. These include both formal marriages and so-called ‘paperless marriages’ that are not normally legally enforceable but are often today accepted by other family members and the community as valid forms of relationship. lone (single) parent - normally the mother (sometimes the father) living without a partner with one or more children. Single parent families include unmarried mothers (sometimes fathers) and divorced or separated parents. and rarely one adult with an adopted child (or children). Vcomplex - these can include extended families, households with three or more adults. and other combinations of household members with or without kinship relations.

The modem debate on families is concerned with a number of pressing issues of direct relevance to work, and which have profound social, psychological. economic, community and policy/legal implications. Some of the main issues concern children and adult dependants. In today’s developed economies families are smaller and attitudes towards children are different. Unlike previous generations the decision to have a child is guided by psychological and emotional needs. Whereas in the traditional family of the past, children were seen as an economic benefit, in European countries today a child can put a large financial burden on parents. In contemporary families both where both partners are working, when children are born decisions have to be made about childcare. Some European countries, typically the northern ones, have well developed childcare structures often supported by the state. In other countries childcare options range from formal public and privately run crkhes to informal arrangements with childminders, family and fiends. For some couples with young children the mother, typically, opts to take on a full-time caring role or reduce her working hours while the children are young whereas in single parent familiesoften there is no choice but to work. which means that children have to be cared for. Similarly, attitudes to adult dependants are changing along with changing demographic patterns and issues relating to couples and children. The doubling of the population aged 80+ in the next three decades combined with the reduced pool of carers (due to lower fertility rates and the increased participation of women in the workforce) will increase the ratio of workers with care-giving obligations dramatically. The probability of having to combine both work and caring for some period in the lifetime of an individual is much higher for women (who provide most of the informal care and assistance). Also, there is a much greater assumption that dependent adults will be cared for (at least partially) outside of the family home and supported by the state or other community institutions either in their own accommodation (perhaps using assistive technology) or in special homes. These changes have been more marked in northern countries compared to southern European countries where more complex family forms (for example including adult dependants such as disabled. unemployed grownup children and, particularly. the elderly) are much more common. Both in the case of children and dependant adults, new work forms (particularly those involving ICT which impart greater potential time and place flexibility) promise increased opportunity for combining work and care functions in new ways. As we examine below. however, research and practice to date reveals complex outcomes involving both costs and benefits for the family and its different members.

Chapter 2. Trends and Issues for Work and Family Life

9

2.3 Technology and new forms of work The ability of ICTs to transcend the boundaries between time and place creates altered distinctions between paid and unpaid work and between work and leisure time. The widespread diffusion of ICTs and the Internet into the domestic arena facilitates a high degree of individual freedom in relation to both paid labour market work and unpaid family work, giving more freedom of choice in organising lifestyle. However, on the negative side, these technologies together with mobile phones have intensified working time and extended out of hours work giving rise to a situation where work can be carried out '24/7' (twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week). Furthermore, bringing work into the home highlights societal trends, such as the growing number of women in the workforce. Present figures indicate that there are more than 10 million European teleworkers (circa 6% of the workforce) and it is predicted that this figure will rise to more than 16 million by 2005. Of the present 10 million teleworkers, approximately one third are regular home-based workers, approximately one third are occasional home-based workers and the remainder are made up of mobile workers and self-employed working from small offices or home ofices. 2.3.1

Types of ework

Multi-site teleworking - involves an employee alternating between working on the employer's premises and working elsewhere. Typically the secondary worksite is the home. This form of working is mainly confined to professional, highly skilled and well paid staff. While both women and men are found it this category, more males tend to do this form of work. However, when it is offered on a voluntary basis, women are more likely to take it up than men are and women are also more likely to combine this type of work with part-time work than men. With regards to location, employees are most likely to be drawn from within a reasonable commuting distance of the employer's premises. Telehomeworking - involves work that is based exclusively in the home and carried out for a single employer, even if the worker does not have formal employee status. This type of work generally involves fairly low-skilled work and is overwhelming carried out by women who may be tied to the home by the need to care for children or other dependants, by disability or by a lack of transport. They have much in common with the traditional manufacturing homeworkers: unpredictable workloads, unsociable hours and exclusion from trade union representation. This form of teleworking is less closely tied to the location of the employer's premises. Freelance telework in contrast is work for a variety of different clients on a contract basis. This group includes both men and women and with this there is some blurring of the demarcations which typically separate men's and women's jobs. This is also the most location-free form of telework, as freelancers can be distributed anywhere from inner city to the countryside. Where freelance workers live in relation to their work is usually determined by the type of telematic infrastructure, frequency of client contact and transport available. Mobile telework is traditionally associated with groups such as travelling sales representatives or inspectors. Developments in technologies, in particular the portable lap-top and mobile phone, have extended this type of mobility to a broader range of occupations and an increasing amount of professional, technical and managerial work is carried out 'on the road'. Because the work is characterised by exceptionally long and unpredictable working hours which are difficult to combine with childcare and

10

Chapter 2. Trends and Issues-forWork and Familv Lge

other care responsibilities, mobile teleworkers tend to be predominantly male. This type of work often has an on-call aspect attached. Relocated back office h c t i o n s refers to telework which takes place on remote office sites. In recent years there has been a rapid growth in this sector with telephone banking, airline booking, customer service as some examples of the type of work undertaken. This work typically involves routine, fairly low paid work. is usually carried out by women and often on a part-time basis. When selecting the location of these sites. employers look for range of factors such as labour costs, grants. and high unemployment. This form of work often takes place on a 24/7 basis and therefore makes use of shiftwork to manage the work distribution. The fixed rules ( e g set start and finish working times. management. communication structures etc.) of the traditional workplace are not valid in teleworking. While in principle teleworking has the potential to provide individuals with freedom of choice as regards when and where to work, in practice choices are constrained by a family demands, temporality of the oflice (the need to provide the service at particular times. the need to meet deadlines). andor by other external timetables (such as schools. day care centres). The telework relationship is one in which rules regarding work and home life have to be renegotiated continuously. The teleworker not only has to negotiate terms and conditions of work with the employer, s h e usually has to negotiate the boundaries between work and non-work activities and the conditions under which work will be carried out with household members. Telework brings the public domain (work) into the private domain (home). This raises a number of issues for teleworkers. For example, the importance of separating 'being at work' from the family domain. To manage this, some teleworkers create physical boundaries in terms of where they work in the house and the schedule they follow. The physical demarcation o f a separate room or at the very least a designated separate working space can be regarded as a prerequisite for teleworking. For most teleworkers there is also a need to psychologically separate work and family by establishing home-based work routines. An inability to achieve this can have a negative impact on family relations. Studies have found that while telework patterns differ from traditional office work patterns, the way in which teleworkers structure their working day reflects the set times of the oflice to a large degree, and normal office hours are frequently considered important for determining how teleworkers structure their work. Teleworkers tend to start work at similar times to office workers in the morning, but their working day tends to be divided into short but prolonged (over the day) - work episodes. Both male and female teleworkers take more breaks than traditional office workers do. They often keep periods free in the afternoons for other activities such as children coming in from school. Some spend the afternoon with family and engaged in household duties, then begin working again after 8 or 9 p.m.

Chapter 2. Trends and Issues for Work and Family Life

11

2.4 Families and new forms of work Changes in the family structure and work environment call for more flexibility in balancing the often conflicting roles of work and family. New family patterns, such as dual career parents and single parent fmilies, contribute to further emphasising the increasingly demanding aspects of many jobs. Related job dissatisfaction, stress, absenteeism and turnover may be extremely damaging for both the individual and the organisation. As a way to deal with these demands, an increasing number of organisations and companies are looking to develop family-fiendly work arrangements. Providing workers with an opportunity to better balance their work and family responsibilities has been found to increase employee effectiveness and job satisfaction, while decreasing turnover rates and absenteeism. In this context, teleworking can be seen as a valuable organisational response to help employees reconcile work and family life, to achieve the aim of allowing individuals to work and to have financial independence whilst at the same time being active parents and maintaining their personal relationships. 2.4. I

Work intensification

The impact of work intensification and increasing work pressures on family lives has not yet been examined in much detail, and this remains an area needing more research. Although it is true than since the 1950s average European working hours per week have decreased fiom about 60 to 40.5 (latest European Labour Force Survey data), these have increased again in recent years, at least in some countries. For example the UK where working hours have risen again over the past 15 years, has the highest number of working hours of all European economies. It is closely followed by Ireland and France and Italy, where work intensification is also relatively high. Denmark and Germany have the lowest work intensification indices and the USA has the highest indices of all the developed economies. Ensuring a better balance between work and family is seen as one way to offset excessive work intensification, which can have negative economic consequences. For example the UK Department of Health reports that 9.1 million working days are lost each year because of stress-related illness, costing British industry €3.7 billion in 1999 (Simpson, 2000). Factors affecting the incidences of stress at work are related to perceived insecurity, uncertainty and fear about losing status and promotion as the pace of work speeds up, especially in the context of staff reductions, increasingly high performance targets over shorter time horizons, etc. Over the past five years people in all kinds of occupations report a greatly increased pace of work. Recent figures from the Families and Work Institute, a New York-based charity, shows that the average US parent spent 22 hours less every week with their children in 1999 than they did in 1969. This is partly due to the increasing numbers of women with children entering the workforce but also to longer working hours. 2.4.2

Work-life balance

Over the last few years, intense policy and media interest has been focused upon work-life balance and the business community. Social partners and governments have invested many resources in highlighting both the business and social benefits accruing from conscious

12

Chapter 2. Trends and Issues for Work and Family Life

attempts to enable individuals to balance their work and family/private lives. The growth of interest in work-life balance is also being driven by the increasing problems many employers face in attracting and retaining qualified staff, and the need to increase productivity and efficiency in the face of growing competitive pressures (for example, in the U.K. for example over 200,000 people now have contracts incorporating specific work-life balance practices). A range of family-friendly policies and practices have been found to be beneficial:

0

0

0

0

childcare allowances, childcare voucher schemes paid family, special or carer leave, paid paternity leave enhanced maternity leave and benefits phased retum from maternity leave job sharing flexible starting and finishing times voluntary reduced-hours working unpaid leave during school holidays family access to learning resources guaranteed Christmas leave for employees with families homeworking and teleworking arrangements.

The benefits accruing to business fiom such schemes include reduced casual sickness absence, improved staff retention. improved productivity, improved recruitment. improved morale and commitment. 2.4.3

Teleworking as a means of reconciling work andfamily

Teleworking creates a real possibility for reconciliation between work and family, but not necessarily a simple one. The success of teleworking for parents is dependent on their personal capacity of response in terms of time management and other organisational arrangements. In addition a number of other factors play a major role, the most important of these being culture, attitudes, family circumstances and the skill level af telewrkers and their partners. Teleworking has been found to offer a range of new opportunities for teleworkers and their families, including:

0 0

increased time and work-location flexibility more control over the pace and schedules of work decreased time in commuting which provides more time for the family the possibility of adjusting work in response to childcare or eldercare needs the opportunity for parents with new born children to return to work earlier or on a parttime basis.

2.4.4

Gender diflerences in relation to paid and unpaid work

When looking at the different relationships that men and women have to paid labour market work and unpaid family work it is necessary to consider the gender structure of society. Largely because of much greater family and domestic roles, women are still much more likely than men to work part time (34% as compared to 18% of the female and male labour force respectively in 1999) and their activity rates are also significantly lower that than of men (53% compared to 72% in 1999). Women without children tend to have higher activity

Chapter 2. Trends and Issues for Work and Family Life

13

rates than those with children and as the number of children increases the number of women in employment decreases, a pattern not seen in the male labour force. There is not much difference however, between male and female in the propensity to work at home, whether or not using ICT (12% of men as compared to 1 1% of women usually or sometimes working from home, 1999). This may be explained by largely because more men are self-employed ( I 8% compared to 9% in 1999), and many of these work from their home address. Recent research shows that in European households, the division of household chores is still very unequal with women doing approximately four fifths of these tasks. It is also recognised that female work demand is subject to discrimination: the female labour market functions too often as a secondary market in which women have to wait to get a job, the ‘good’ ones being mainly occupied by men. There is also a lot of evidence that the unequal division of domestic work and access to the labour market puts much greater pressure on women than men when trying to balance work and family responsibilities. Also, women feel more conflict between work and family than men do, and that the mothers (and, to a lesser extent, the fathers) of younger children feel more conflict between work and family than mothers (and fathers) of older children. 2.4.5

Gender and telework

Home-based telework can simultaneously enable women to combine multiple roles at the same time as it can reinforce gendered experiences of work and family, whether it is a man or woman who is based at home. The women teleworkers, especially mothers, tend to combine work and family within the elasticity of domestic time, while the male teleworkers import industrial time into the home. Men tend to preserve the distinction between work and family despite the lack of spatial boundaries and with the support of women partners. Teleworking may be family friendly in the sense of enabling women to combine work and family, but it is not necessarily gender equitable in its operations and effects. There are two main models regarding telework’simpact on gender roles: 1. the new opportunities for flexibility model - which sees home-based telework as a possible solution to problems of balancing work and family, particularly for women. 2 the exploitation model - which sees telework as a potential means of perpetuating the exploitation of women in terms of both paid work and the domestic burden of responsibility. Extensive research on work-family roles and boundaries and gender, amongst home-based teleworkers and their families, provides tentative support for both models, showing that they are not necessarily mutually exclusive. 2.4.6

Gender and motivation to telework

Studies have found that the motivation for teleworking is the same for men and women without children or with grown up children. They wished to reduce commuting time, be able to work without interruptions and wished to make choices about when and where they worked. The motivation to telework for couples with younger children however, shows that there are significant gender differences. It would appear that women may choose to telework in order to achieve flexibility in coping with work and family and as a way to balance childcare, whereas men opt for telework to increase productivity, escape the environment of the corporate workplace and free themselves from conventional working hours.

Chapter 2. Trends and h u e s f o r Work and Familv Life

14

Studies show that one of the main benefits of full-time home-based teleworking for women is that it gives them the freedom and flexibility to shift between paid and unpaid work during the day and gave them better control over the planning oftheir work. However. women also noted that their presence in the home and shifting between paid and unpaid work during the day also meant that they did all or nearly all of the work in the household and because they did not hlfil the traditional view of work i.e. leave home to carry out work between fixed hours, they were perceived predominantly as housewives because of their surroundings. Indeed some women have described home-based teleworking as ‘a modem solution to an old problem’ - the problem of combining paid labour market work with unpaid housework and care. 2.4.7

Impact of teleworking on farnilies

It is now generally accepted by telework experts that home-based teleworking is not the response to childcare problems. Teleworking arrangements do however give parents some welcome flexibility - for example to be able to spend time with a sick child or to attend a daytime school activity. Studies have found that it is primarily children who gain from having a parent working in the home. Working in this way provides a greater opportunity to adjust working hours to the needs ofthe children. For example, it was found that both teleworking men and women took the time in the morning to have breakfast with their children and accompany them to school or nursery, and both spent time with children in the afternoons and after dinner before putting them to bed. Also, in this regard, teleworking men took a larger part of what traditionally is seen as a woman’s responsibility in the home. From these findings it would seem that telework is compatible with more egalitarian gender roles in relation to childcare. The tendency of both men and women to regularly occupy evenings working made it possible for them to spend time with the children but has been found to diminish the time that spousedpartners could spend together. To some degree taking breaks from work. for example to watch TV together. compensated this for.

2.5 Conclusion In conclusions the widespread d i f h i o n of ICTs, the Internet in general. and the rapid uptake of these technologies into the domestic arena are transforming the way in which work is conducted. Teleworking has benefits for both employers and workers. It provides opportunities for job creation, for maintaining highly skilled employees and for providing work-family balance. However there are also some negative Side-efTixts, and work intensification, increased inequality between the sexes and preservation of traditional gender patterns are some of the main disadvantages of teleworking. In the present context the family is defined as: two or more persom. tied hy kinship bonds of various rypes. who live in u (semi) permunent relutionship. who share resources (including finuncial) and who have speciulised roles. Those with a direct caring relationship with another family member (such an adult daughterkon caring for an elderly parent) living at another location were also included in this study.

15

Chapter 3 Results from the family survey 3.1 The FAMILIES analyticframework The first phase of the project focused on developing an analytic framework' to underpin the work, in particular the empirical investigation of families in four countries - Ireland, Italy, Germany and Denmark - that is the focus ofthis chapter. The framework includes an analysis and classification of family types; an analysis and classification of new work methods (eWork) emerging in the Information Society; and analysis and modelling of the work-family interface. 3.1.1

Family types

Four main familyhousehold types are identified in the framework: couples with children, couples without children, single parent fmilieshouseholds and familiedhouseholds with one or more elderly or disabled dependant. Each family type is significant in both quantitative terms (they each make up a significant proportion of European fmilieshouseholds) and qualitative terms (they each raise particular issues and needs in relation to the new work methods). Social and demographic trends have resulted in a situation where the traditional nuclear family of husband, wife and children can no longer be considered to be the normative situation. From a pluralist perspective, the costs and benefits of eWork for all types of families need to be considered. From a labour force perspective, the experiences of those whose participation may be most sensitive to work-family balance requirements, such as women with young children, single parents and people caring for elderly dependants, need particular attention. 3.1.2 e Workingarrangements As indicated in Figure 1, four generic variants of eWorking arrangements are identified in the framework. These are distinguished according to the ways in which the place andor time of work are organised relative to the conventional 9-to-5, central workplace arrangement. This taxonomic approach was developed because of its suitability for analysis of work-family issues - compatibility between the time and place of work and the time and place of family needdactivities is central to work-family balance.

'

Reports presenting the analytic framework can be found on the FAMILIES project web-site (www.familiesproiect.com)

Chapter 3. Resultsfiorn the Family Survev

16

Place

Typical

E“

IST changes the way work is done in conventional settings at conventional times

. I

I

Atypical Home-based telework “940-5”

I

Mobile telework *‘9-to-5”

Neighbourhood work centre .‘9-t0-5’‘

I Home-based Shift-work in conventional setting enabldinduced by IST (e.g. call centre work)

telework (atypical times)

On-call w a k at home or mobile (night, weekend, etc.)

Figure I . Taxonomy of eWork arrangements in time and place

The four variants are typical place, typical time (e.g. central office, 9-to-5); typical place, atypical time (e.g. shift workers in new eOccupations such as call centre operators); typical time, atypical place (e.g. teleworkers on 9-to-5 schedules); and atypical place, atypical time (e.g. 24-hour on-call work). These generic variants manifest themselves in a variety of concrete forms and sub-forms, including:

0

0

0

home-based teleworking and its variations (most of the time or just part of the time; normal hours or atypical hours; employee or self-employed) shift-working in new eoccupations such as call centres (varying mixes of early, late and night shifts) on-call working (continuous and rotating duty schedules) mobile working (working on the move, multiple work locations, business travel) working in local telework centres or neighbowhood work centres.

3.1.3 Impact at the work-family interface

The framework also includes a model of mechanisms and processes at the work-family interface that determine how work arrangements and family life bteract, and the outcomes that result h m these interactions. The perspective draws on and integrates a wide range of theoretical and empirical approaches, including work psychology and the sociology of the work-family interface; gendered issues in relation to work and family roles; and practical approaches to work-life balance, such as increased flexibility in time and place, and the utilisation of technology to support work and family needs. Different levels of potential impact on the family are identified along with associated mechanisms that can operate at the work-family interface (Figure 2). This part of the framework provides the theoretical basis for the empirical work and identities the main dimensions to be addressed in the work.

17

Chapter 3. Results from the Family Survey

Main mechanisms

I

career‘LOng-term

.,

Nuture and timing c$ employment undfumily changes in “career” options and lfertility und care) careers choices, both work and family *

Adoption of changes in time of work

Indirect

due to changes in:

-

the nature of the work

family

Spillover and Crossover

Figure 2. Impact of eWork at the work-family interface

3.2 The FAMILY survey The remainder of this report presents the results of the survey of eWorkers and their families that was carried out within the context ofthe analytic framework. This empirical part of the work is aimed at improving our understanding of issues such as: 0 Distribution of costs and benefits between work and family 0 Distribution ofcosts and benefits within the family 0 Labour market and career implications (for the eWorker and for the partner, where Impact on (gendered) roles and equality relevant) Implications for childcare requirements 0 Implications for families in challenging circumstances, such as single parents and working carers (of elderly or other dependants) 0 Management of work-family conflict (successfill and unsuccessfbl coping styles) 0 Usage of and requirements for IST applications, services and equipment (for work, for caring whilst working, for work-family resource sharing) 0 Overall suitability and sustainability of different work arrangements for different family circumstances 0 Support factors that could improve the suitability/sustainability of eWorking as a familyfriendly option (policy, technology, social partners, services). The focus in this report is on presenting an overview and synthesis of the results of the survey, including issues and themes, commonalties and differences across the diverse range of eWorking arrangements and family situations that made up the sample. The families were selected as examples of the main work-family combinations defined in the analytic framework that underpins the project’s work, and diversity was aimed for and achieved in the exercise. The results and conclusions should therefore be interpreted for their heuristic value in identifying the issues and themes that arise in these types of work-family situation rather

Chapter 3. Results porn the Family Survejv

18

than as definitive statements about the wider workforce that could only be made on the basis of large-scale representative surveys. The remainder of this report is structured as follows. Section 2 outlines the objectives and scope of the empirical work, the approach and methods that were used, and the basic characteristics of the sample. Section 3 presents an overview of the cases and of the reasons why eWorking was adopted. Section 4 presents a structured analysis of the results of the survey, looking at the experiences of the overall sample of eWorkers and their families and the commonalties and difTerences across the various sub-groups.

3.3 Approach and methods It is important to emphasise at the outset that the FAMILIES empirical work was primarily a heuristic exercise, aimed at collecting an interesting and balanced set of experiences of work and family life at the dawn of the eWork era. Because of this, the aim was not to generate statistically representative samples or statistically representative results, and this needs to be borne in mind in the interpretation and utilisation of the results. Having said that, however. there was a strong desire to ensure that our collection of case studies and the issues that they would uncover would be reflective of a range of situations and circumstances that are already becoming widespread for families in Europe or that are likely to do so in the future. Workpackage 1 of the project gave this matter a lot of attention and prepared a sampling and analytic h e w o r k that was the basis for selection of cases and the methods used to generate information about those cases. 3.3.1 Sampling frame

The basic sampling followed the typologies of eWork and families developed in the analytic framework, as indicated in Figure 3. Family types eWork types

I

Couples with children

Single parent families

Couples without children

Families caring for dependants with

Typical time, atwical dace Atypical time, typical place Atypical time, atwical dace

Figure 3 . Basic sampling frame

Given the resource constraints within which the project was operating it was decided to focus our attention on the three eWork types where the time and/or place of work was atypical. It was intended that the methodology would allow comparisons between our 'atypical' situations and more typical situations by wherever possible by asking respondents to make pre-post comparisons, comparing their 'atypical' experiences with earlier 'typical' experiences that they have had. However, these 'internal' comparisons between the current and previous situation of the family were not always easy to interpret.

Chapter 3. Results from the Family Survey

19

3.4 Finding the sample The partners in the four countries then set about finding cases that would fill this sampling frame and give a good spread across the various work-family combinations. Apart from the main work-type and family-type dimensions, efforts were also made to get good representation by gender, level of autonomy and residential location. A range of methods was employed to identify potential interviewees. These included: 0 Literature analysis and desk-research (Internet, newspaper articles, other publications), to find examples of eWorking initiatives that might provide good examples 0 Approaches to employer organisations and individual employers Approaches to trade unions 0 Approaches to user organisationshetworks (telework, carer organisations and single parent organisations) 0 Advertising of the study on the web sites of telework associations 0 The FAMILIES partner networks of corporate and personal contacts. The final sample reflects families identified through all of these approaches. Finding eWorkers with caring responsibilities for older or disabled dependants was a challenging task. In Ireland, for example, although there is a growing interest amongst both carer organisations and teleworker organisations in the potential offered by eWorking from home for people with caring responsibilities, when approached for help with finding actual examples of eWorking by carers they had great dif‘ficulty finding any. Part of the reason for this is that members of carer organisations are often older women who have withdrawn from the worldorce or are older workers with typically lower levels of IT literacy. Also, in contrast to the situation in the US, it is only recently that the issue of eldercare responsibilities of employees is beginning to be recognised and addressed by European employers. After a lot of effort on the ground through the networks ofthe FAMILIES partners it was possible to find enough carers to meet our sampling objectives. A somewhat similar situation arose in relation to finding single parents who were eWorking. Again, the representative organisations had dificulty identifLing suitable candidates and a lot of effort on the ground through the FAMILIES partners’ networks was needed to fill the sampling frame for this category.

3.5 Methods The main method for generating the case studies and associated data was by structured, faceto-face interviews, complemented by some self-completion questionnaires for respondents2. In order to gain a good understanding of the issues and implications for the entire family, including the various stakeholders (eWorker, partner, children, dependants with special needs) both eWorkers and their partners were (separately) interviewed in the majority of cases3. The structured interview schedule covered the various issues identified in sections 1.1.3 and 1.2 above. There were two self-completion instruments. One was an instrument aiming

The various instruments can be found on the project web site (www.families-project.com)

’ Children or dependants with special needs were not interviewed because of the specialist skills that would be needed and also because there are a variety of ethical issues to be considered in interviewing children or other dependants.

20

Chapter 3. Resultsfiom the Family Survey

to tap attitudes to eWork and a variety of associated work-fmily issues4. The other included some items fiom larger representative surveys of the European workforce in order to provide some very basic comparisons of the characteristics of our sample ofeWorkers with those of the wider European workforce’. 3.5.1.

Process of undertaking the case studies

Once potential participants were identified and their work and family roles were clarified by telephoning them, the interview teams in the respective countries assessed their suitability in relation to the FAMILIES taxonomy and other relevant sampling criteria. Selected participants were then formally invited to participate in the study. They were asked to be interviewed themselves and also to seek their partner‘s agreement (where applicable) to participate. Once all parties concerned had agreed to the interview, the interviewer set up a date and time for the interview. The fieldwork was carried out fiom February to July 2001, using face-to-face interviews. It was decided that this method was the most appropriate one, given the nature of the topics to be covered and the relatively long interview times that were anticipated. Most interviews took place in the family home, some at the eWorker’s workplace, and some in other venues of convenience to the eWorker andor partner e.g. restaurants or hotels. In the majority of cases it was possible to interview both partners on the same day, although sometimes it was necessary to organise the partner’s interview on another date. The self-completion questionnaires were either completed and returned to the interviewer at the time of the interview or, where time was short or the interview had already taken a long time. were left with the respondent(s) to be completed and returned by mail. As expected, completion of the structured interview schedule during the face-to-face interviews required quite a long time, typically about 2 hours. In general, however, this proved feasible and acceptable to all concerned (although sometimes taking more time than the fmilies had expected, particularly when both partners were interviewed consecutively on the same occasion) and certainly was worthwhile in terms of the quality and richness of information that was generated. Overall, co-operation h m both partners was very good and only in a few cases where there was a partner did it prove logistically impossible to interview himher as well. Those interviewed were happy to be involved in the research and seemed to contribute in an honest and open way. For many it was their first opportunity to reflect overtly on their work family issues and they found this to be at least interesting if not even beneficial.

3.6 Sampling objectives and achievements The original target was to carry out a minimum of 100 case studies of eWorking families in total, 25 in each country. In the event, this target was surpassed and a total of 107 case studies were completed and written up. Table I shows the final sample with the original indicative targets in parentheses.

* The results of this part of the work are to be reported separately and will be made available on the project web site (www .fam i I ies-project.com ) Eurobarometer 44.3 - ‘Employment, Unemployment and the Quality of Life’ (Gallie, D. 1996) and ‘Equal Opportunities for Men and Women’ (European Commission, Employment and Social Affairs, 1996); European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions - ‘Second European Survey on Working Conditions’ ( 1997). ’Ten Years of Workin5 Conditions in the European Union - Summary‘ (200I )

21

Chapter 3. Results fiom the Family Survey

Table 1. Sample description according to work arrangement and family type of the eWorkers

Atypical place, typical time Typical place, atypical time Atypical place, atypical time Typical place, typical time Total

Single parent family 8

couple with children

couple, no children

carers

TOTAL

15

4

6

33 (40)

4

9

2

5

20 (25)

6

29

12

5

52 (35)

1

0

0

1

2 (0)

19 (15)

53 (45)

18 (25)

17 (15)

107 (100)

Overall, as can be seen, the final sample reflects quite well the original indicative sampling targets. In this regard the project had to deal with a challenge that has been widely experienced in research ofthis nature - the lack of a clearly identifiable and easily locatable population from which to draw a sample. In this project, therefore, like many others before it, it was necessary to combine pragmatic opportunism with formal a priori sampling goals. One deviation ffom the initial targets was in relation to family types. In this case it was decided to try to re-balance the initial sampling targets a little, to include more single parent families and carers, and fewer couples without children than originally planned, and it proved possible to achieve this. The other deviation was in relation to work types, with the final sample having somewhat more in the atypical place/atypical time category than originally targeted. This is discussed in a little more detail in section 4.4.2. It should be noted that, on occasion, it was not easy to classify families in one category or another, especially in relation to home based workers. However, the above categorisation represents the best attempt to assign eWorkers to the most relevant categories in the context of the sometimes complex working arrangements that they had. 3.6.1

Family-types

One important point to note about the classification by family types is that the final category families caring for people with special needs - is not orthogonal to the other categories. In fact, all ofthe other three categories can be caring for people with special needs, as can single people (living with or away from the dependant). Figure 4 provides a l l l e r description of the sample in terms of family types, looking at the family make-up from the point of view of the eWorker.

Care dependants

Figure 4. Sample description in terms of family types

22

Chapter 3. Results *om the Familv Survev

The breakdown of primary family types in the final sample according to country is depicted in Table 2. Table 2. Sample description in terms of family types and according to countries single parent family

Denmark Germany Ireland Italy Total

4 4

7 4 19

couple with children 11 12 19 I1 53

couple, no children 7 4 3

carers 3 5 3 (4)

4

6 (2)

18

17 (6)

Total 25 25 32 25 I07

In relation to the issue of care for dependants, it is important to note that there are a number of additional families with caring responsibilities ‘hidden’ in these presentations of the families. This is because some families where there is some level of care have been classified according to another primary family characteristic (e.g. as a family with children or as a single parent family) as this is how they primarily viewed themselves within the context of the FAMILIES project interview. In total there are 6 more such families with at least some caring for dependants, and for which such care is treated in the case studies (these are indicated in parentheses in Table 2). In total, therefore, 23 of the 107 cases are of families with at least some level of care responsibilities, enough for it to have arisen as an issue in the interview. However, it needs to be noted that the sample of carers achieved was quite a heterogeneous one, including people caring for disabled children and people caring for elderly relatives, and that the nature and amounts of care being provided varied considerably. 3.6.2

Work-types

In relation to types of eWork, the overall final sample by work type reflects quite well the original targets. In this case, even more so than for family-type, it was sometimes difficult to know precisely what category the case fitted into before the interview was completed. This applied particularly to those who worked partly or a lot from home, where it was often impossible to know in advance about the way they organised their working hours in relation to ‘typical’ 9-to-5, Monday-to-Friday arrangements. Overall, it turned out that more of these people worked enough at atypical times (early mornings, evenings, night-times, weekends and so on) to be classified in the ‘atypical place, atypical time’ category and this explains why this category has more than was initially expected. It can also be seen that the sample did include two people working at more traditional timedplaces, but with interesting views and preferences in relation to eWorking. These were included because ofthe added value that they gave to the set of cases in terms of coverage of single parents and carers. For purposes of the ‘quantitative‘ analyses presented in Chapter 4 of this report. 105 of the cases provided suitable information. Table 3 provides breakdowns according to concrete types of work arrangements and gender for these 105 cases.

Chapter 3. Resultsfrom the Family Survey

23

Table 3 . Work arrangements of the eWorkers (concrete types) by gender male

n Working primarily from home, typical times Working primarily from home, atypical times Working partly from home (alternating), typical times Working partly from home (alternating), atypical times On-call working Shift working Other Total

female

Total

n

%

n

%

2

% 4. I

5

8.9

7

6.7

7

14.3

5

8.9

12

11.4

5

10.2

15

26.8

20

19.0

21

42.9

11

19.6

32

30.5

6 3 5 49

12.2 6.1 10.2 100.0

I 15 4 56

1.8 26.8 7.1 100.0

7 18 9

6.7 17.1 8.6 100.0

105

As can be seen, the sample represents a good spread of the variety of eWorking arrangements

in time and place that have (potentially) the most direct implications for work-family issues. As planned in the sampling approach, the largest single category comprises people working at least partly from home. This is the form of eWorking that has the potential to offer the greatest flexibility for balancing work and family but also, of course, opens up the potential for greater interference between the two domains. Within the group working at least partly from home, there is a mix of people working primarily from home (working 75% or more of their time at home) and working partly from home (working at least 20% of their time at home). Of course, the estimates of time spent working at home were largely subjective, and the categories conceal a certain amount of diversity in working arrangements. It should also be noted that the people working alternating arrangements did so on both a formal and informal basis. The next biggest category are shift workers, comprising mostly people working in callcentre type operations, where many people are now working a variety of early and late shift rotas, and some in other IT-related occupations. A smaller number of on-call workers than had originally been hoped for were included, primarily because of the lack of visibility of this form of work. However, there are enough cases to give useful insights into the types of issue that this form of work raises at the work-family interface. Finally, there are a small number of ‘other’ work types including some people working in ‘neighbourhood work centres’ and some mobile workers. Of these, the ‘neighbourhood work centre’ category was specifically targeted in our sampling approach because of the potential to offer the ‘best of both worlds’ for work-family balance - going out to work, but in the local neighbourhood. However, despite the apparent promise (and considerable hype in the late 1980s and early 199Os), there appear to be very few operational neighbourhood work centres in the four countries. In relation to mobile workers, this ‘other’ category only includes those who do little or no work fiom home - there are quite a few other mobile teleworkers amongst the home-workers in the sample and the issues raised by their travel and irregularity of work place are addressed in the case studies. In relation to gender, a good mix of males and females was achieved, with slightly more females overall. Amongst the home-workers, men were more represented amongst those working at atypical times. In the other categories, the majority of shift workers were women (most but not all working in call centres) whereas only one of the on-call workers was female. The country breakdown according to work type (concrete types) is presented in Table 4. It can be seen that in general there is good coverage of types across countries, with some

Chapter 3. Results fiom the Family Survey

24

variations. For example, the Irish sample includes a lot more eWorkers working primarily from home. This reflects, in part, a deliberate et'fort to get a good coverage of people who do most of their work at home. Also, traditionally in Ireland teleworking has been most common amongst &lancers working from home and it is only in the relatively recent past that formal alternating telework schemes have begun to emerge as an option for employees. Table 4. Work arrangement of the eWorkers by country

Table 5 gives a cross-mapping of work type and family type. It can be seen that the sample inciudes all combinations apart from single parent families who do o n 4 1 work. a combination which for practical reasons is unlikely to be found very often in reality. Table 5. Work anangernent of the eWorkers by family type

Working From home Partly Primarily parent single family with couple childten couple with children couple, no c h i l h couple, no children CarerS

CarerS

Tdal Total

On-call

7

10

10

26

10

26

I

4 4

Shifts

Other

Total

4

2

18

5

7

4

52

5

7

4

3 3 19

10 10 6 6

1 1 1 1

52

19

52

7 7

2 2 5

5 18 18

52

I

1

1

18

1 2

1

18 17

2

I

9 9

1

17 105 105

3.7 Other characteristics of the sa&e As indicated in Table 6 the sample provides good coverage across age groups. The largest numbers are in their mid-careers, between 35 and 45 years old, and this reflects well the

overall situation with respect to telework (one of the main forms of eWork) in Europe as revealed by the results of the ECATT project (www.ecatt.com). In a representative survey of the population in 10 EC Member States ECATT found the average age of teleworkers to be around 40.

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Chapter 3. Resultsfrom the Family Survey

Table 6. Age of eWorkers

19 31 26 17 12 I05

34 and younger 35 to 39 40. to. 44 45 to 49 50 and older Total

I

18.1 29.5 24.8 16.2 11.4 100.0

The sample also shows good variation by household size (Table 7), which quite reasonably reflects the situations in the different countries. Table 7. Household size

I

2 members 3 members 4 members 5 members 6 members Total

I

n 36

I

YO 34.3

21

20.0

30 15 3 105

28.6 14.3 2.9 100.0

In relation to ages of children living in the households, there is again good coverage across relevant age categories (Table 8). Table 8. Ages of children living in the households

only children aged 4 and younger (14) only children aged 5 to 10 (5-10) only children aged 1 1 and older (1 1+) only 14and5-10 only 5-10 and 1 I+ children in every age group ( stressed us I was before, I manage many of the household tasks during breaks in my workins day, e.g. putting the washing into the machine, putting on the dinner. Also, I get to spenc more time with my children. I take and collect themkom school; I supervise the older child’! homework in the ajternoon, while the younger one goes to childcure. The children benej? kern being able to attend ujter school activities, which were not possible before. The onij downside is that work is ulways present und it is easy to slip oJJ und do uJew hours even i, there is no need to. ‘

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Personal reasons Example relocate to rural area A family of five decided to re-locate to the country in order to provide a better quality of life for all of them. The mother negotiated with her employers that she kept her senior management position in the company and managed her working time by working 2 days at home and 3 days from the office. Afier a couple of months, it was evident that the long commute (1 70km)and the supervisory aspects of her job were difficult and she re-negotiated her contract to a part-time eWork position with no supervisory responsibilities. She now only travels to the office to attend meetings about once a week. ‘Workingpart-time means I do not huve the childcare headaches I hadpreviously, I enjoy my children more, the domestic .situation is under control for the first time since we had the children and I can provide my husband with help and support in his business which currently takes up 70-80 hours of his working time. *

IReduce commuting Example In a couple with no children, the man has swapped his full-time office job for a full-time eWork arrangement and self-employed status. eWorking !?om a dedicated ofice within the home cuts out the 1.5 hours daily commute in heavy city traffic. He can now decide how he will manage his working times and while he generally sticks to traditional office hours, if he wishes to he can take time out during a week day and make it up at some other time. ‘Working@om home means that my partner and I have a lot more time together overall and particularly during the daytime. Also, I can create timefor activities, leisure and family when I want to by re-organising my working day and doing more work at the weekend or in the evenings. ’

Work related reasons

1

I

Example Workaholic culture in an organisation In this example, the head of department within an insurance company originally intended to work full days at home (‘only on and of) but finds that she uses her home office predominantly in the evenings and at the weekends. In fact, it was at her superior‘s suggestion that she take up telework because he wanted his executives to also be contactable at weekends (‘the boss likes to make use of that 7. She expected home working would enable her to ‘ have quiet time for conceptuai work, to combine work and family better and not h e to go to the ofice for petty jobs ’. Unfortunately, the fvst and third of her expectations have come true, whereas the second remains difficult as the expected reduction in working hours has not occurred. ! The relative importance of these various reasons for adoption depends to a certain degree on the national/cultural context. Some are probably equally relevant in all Member States but others are more likely to be influenced by contextual factors such as the availability and quality of childcare or eldercare services.

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5.3 Different levels and types of impact As noted above, eWorking is sometimes actively chosen as a solution to work-family balance requirements and sometimes the implications for work-family balance are more of a byproduct of eWorking that was adopted for other reasons. Given this, and the variety of reasons for the adoption ofeworking that our cases have shown, it is not surprising that the impacts on the family can come in quite different forms and at quite different levels. In some cases, there can be hdamental changes in roles in relation to paid work. In fitmilies with two parents, eWorking may allow (or precipitate) a re-balancing of opportunities and responsibilities, for example by providing the financial resources to enable one partner to down-shift to shorter hours or even not to work at all for a time. More commonly, it may provide the flexibility in time/place (in at least one of the partner’s work arrangements) to allow the status quo (in terms of joint work situations) to remain but with better work-life balance overall for the family. For lone parent families and for carers, it can sometimes provide the only option that enables them to combine working with parenting or to combine working and caring. In other cases (such as eWorking from home that was initiated for nonfamily reasons) there can be unanticipated benefits in terms of quality of relations and involvement with family, as well as a range of possible downsides.

Reducing working hours Example A mother, who reduced her working hours from a full time position with a part-office parthome aspect to a part-time completely home-based position, finds as a result that she has more quality time with her children. ‘IBnd out what is happening in their lives when it happens. When they went to childcare, by the time I collected them in the evenings, they were tired and not interested in talking about what happened at school. Now we can go jor walks on the beach in the ajiernoon, catch up on the school day straight ajier school. ’ Example In a family where the mother has a 24/7,365 on-call responsibility her husband agreed to take a career break in order to bring harmony back to the household, and to undertake the domestic and childcare roles so that his wife could enhance her career ambitions. ‘My partner looking ujier the family and the home means that I can concentrate 100% on my job. This is brilliant, because before I would have been pre-occupied with the children and other family related activities when I was working. I only see myserf doing this on-call job in the short-term to atfvunce my career prospects. When my partner goes back to work, he will take up where he leji ofi so there is no great serious impact on his career, which is good. ’

Flexibility in time and place for working couple with two children Example His typical working week is split in two: Mondays to Wednesdays he works in the office. Thursdays and Fridays he works at the home workplace, from 08:OO to 12:OO and after a shared lunch with his children, works part of the afternoons and evenings. His wife also works full time. At the time her partner started his new employment, her contract was changed so that she now has the possibility of complete flexible working times. She no longer has to keep core times; instead of working according to weekly hours, she works annual hours. They organised their working life in such a way that someone is always at home to look after the children. Both partners see a disadvantage in that they only rarely spend time with each other. The presence of an au pair now gives them the opportunity to do things together in the evening.

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ILone parent eWorking and managing a family I

Example A lone parent with two school-going children was offered a part-home, part-oflice work1

arrangement to help her manage the round of appointments her baby with special needsf needed to attend. ‘Workingin this ww, meum thut I cun get my son to all his uppoimnent.5 and continue to work full-time. The older children enjoy being uble to come home u$er school where they are uble to play with local JLiendy and also enjoy the benefits of being uble to enguge in uJter school activities us I can re-organise my time to tuke them to these. Working in this way, however meuns that I am always rushing to go either to the ofice or .somewhere with one or other of the children. I h e no time for mysewut all. When I was working in the ofice. at least I hud a lunch break which I could spend us I chose. ‘

I ~

Example A lone parent with one school-going child was offered the opportunity to become self-

employed in a new position and given complete discretion as to when and where she works. She has chosen to work full-time from a dedicated office in the family home. ‘This is the perject solution for me. I get to spend time with my son, enjoy the benefits offill-time work and can maintain my cureer progression while he is young. I work my hours around his school timetuble and m u h up udditionul hours if required in the evenings or ut weekends. My job has two very busy periods where I cun work up to 80 hoursjor aboutfour weeks ofthe year, however I orgunise to work these during school term times with the help and support 01 childminders and fumily. During the summer months, I plan my work so that I can spend more time with my son while keeping on top ofmy work. ‘

5.4

-

Winners and losers who or what benefits from e Work

Related to all of this is the question of who or what is the beneficiary of the eWorking arrangement. Our cases show that it can sometimes be the work and sometimes the family that benefits most. They also show that although in some situations the whole family benefits, in others the distribution of benefits within the family can be quite skewed. Sometimes the eWorker is the main beneficiary, for example through personal or career development, or reduced stress; sometimes the main beneficiaries can be other members of the family, with eWorkers experiencing social isolation, increased pressure because of combined work and household duties, or other downsides. In many cases, however, it seems that win-win situations are possible, although these are not automatic and require wellorganised, we 11-supported and equitable arrangements.

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eWorker benefits on the personal side Example A father of three was genuinely pleased to be offered a position which included a 24/7, 365 on-call responsibility as he saw it as a way of enhancing his future career opportunities and increasing his family finances. ‘I love technology and solving technical problems. At home 1 huve set up a network so that I can simulate problems and work out solutions. Work isv like a hobby to me. As a result qf my on-call allowances, my.fumily enjoy a better yuulity of lifi and my wije can spend more time with our children reducing her working hours to halftime’

’ Example 1

This partner is as a freelancer working for different customers. eWork provided an answer to his own personal requirements concerning work content and the management of his own professional and private life. Time flexibility, work irregularity, and constant professional updating make this experience particularly positive for him also, because the negative side of this condition, namely work insecurity, is much assuaged by the presence of a partner with a very well-paid permanent job. ‘I love the way I’m working now; to me routine is the cause oj stress. I hope m t o change ‘.

Other family members benefit with eWorker experiencing social isolation Example A single parent with two school-going children who has opted to take up full-time eWork in order to better manage her joint family and work responsibilities says, ‘I really enjoy the flexibility that eWork provides me with. It o8er.s me more time with my $umily, time to manage the household better and the opportunity to continue working. However, I miss my colleagues, the oJJicebanter and the fuct that sometimes when I am deuling with a difficult situation there is no one to bounce it ofi or difise the@ustration Ifeel in handling a dicffjcult customer. In the ofJice we would have discussed it, laughed and forgotten about it. ’ Example A married woman with three teenage children has opted for a partially home-based eWork arrangement. ‘I wanted to be near my children, be at home when they came buck@om school’. She is experiencing a lot of social isolation because of the teleworking arrangement and very much misses the camaraderie of her work colleagues. On the other hand, the attitudes and expectations of the family members have resulted in a situation where the increased time and flexibility has been almost entirely to the benefit of the other family members and not the e-worker herself. As her husband says ‘she has more time now and we eat much better.’ Her feelings about teleworking, though mostly positive, are conflictual: ‘Sometimes I would like to go back to the oflce. There you can really take a break, at home you can ’t,you’re always involved with the problems ojthe household. ’

Whole family benefits (win-win situation) Example This eWorker feels that his working arrangement has had a positive influence on the family. He used to work full-time in the office and commute daily for 3 hours. Nowadays, he works fewer days and spends 50% of his time split between home and office. His relationship with his wife is better and she has more time for herself because he is more involved in what he calls the ‘domestic drudgery’ of the household.

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Another eWorker, who works entirely from his home office, finds that his eWorking arrangement has been positive for all his family. Before eWorking his work was a constant source of stress. His wife, who takes care of the children full-time, says that, ‘the children ure really benefiting from having their ,futher around. They h e u great relationship with him and it is u high point for the children. particularly our eldest duughter, to come und visit theirjuther in his oflce ufier school. He ulso looks fimvurd to vi.sitsfiom the chilhen in the u$ernoons ’. i I

5.5 Labour market and .career issues - Down-shijting, up-shijling and sevemployment

As also noted earlier, eWorking can have implications for labour market participation and for career issues. In fact, the links can be varied and complex. For some people, eWorking offers an opportunity to get back into the workplace after a period of absence; for others it provides opportunities for ‘down-shifting’, where working hours andor c m r aspirations can be reduced for critical periods in the family lifecycle. eWorking can also provide opportunities for career changes, including the radical step of moving from secure employment to selfemployment. On the other hand, our cases suggest that some people experience their eWorking as a threat to their careers,for example, employees working partly or wholly fiom home can feel that ‘out of sight is out of mind’ when it comes to promotions and other aspects of career development. There is also a suggestion that eWorking can sometimes loosen the sense of connection between employees and their immediate employers, as well as between workers and the conventional labour market. although overall the eWorkers in this study maintained high levels of work orientation.

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Example Reenter the labour market as self-employed After a period of unemployment and several unsuccessflul job applications the respondent decided to set up his own business at home. Even though it is quite a basic enterprise, it would not be possible to do this without a computer and access to the internet, as well as the mobile phone services. Thus, today he is independent and uses the technologies to keep track of his business records and contacts as well as a means of communicating with the family when he is away. Setting up by himself as a home-based self-employed individual was obviously the only possibility for this person to re-enter the labour market and he considers the outcome is very positive. Example eWorker loses out on career prospects for benefit of family, partner and mother A father of two school-going children opts to take time out of his career and work on a parttime eWork basis instead so as to reduce the stress experienced by his family when both he and his wife were working full-time in senior positions. He now works at home around the children’s school timetables and manages the domestic and childcare roles. Working in this way also means that the family have been able to take his elderly mother into the family home to live with them and he can provide her with the additional support she needs at this time. ‘1 took up part-time working to provide care for the children in their own home uJer school and to enable my wife to pursue her career ambitions at this time. I do not see this as a long-term solution however, also I am beginning to get concerned about the impact this break may huve on my career in thefirture. ’

1

Takes opportunity to become self-employed Example eWork offered a disgruntled commutpr the opportunity to become self-employed. ‘Working for myself means that I can control the amount of work thut I do, choose the contracts that 1 take and specialise in certuin areas of work. I can also choose the times that I work and manage to create time for myself and for my family which mean that we experience a better quality of life. ’ ‘Out of sight is out of mind’ A mother of one school-going child switches her job fiom the ofice to the home. She continues to work full-time in the same position, however she works her hours around her daughter’s school timetable, making up additional hours by an early start each morning and some evening and weekend work ‘Idid it because my daughter no longer wished to attend childcure ufer school. Hud I not been able to workfiom home, I would huve had to consider taking a career break until my daughter was in her teens. The e Workingscheme is new in my organisation and I am the pilot e Worker. I am a little concerned thut working at home like this means that “out ofsight is out of mind” when it comes to promotional 0fler.s in the workplace ’.

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Chapter 5 . Emergent Issues and Themes

5.6 Dreams and realities - the advantages and disadvantages of workhgfiom home One of the most profound changes associated with the emergence of eWorking is the shifting of work from conventional workplaces to the home. In principle, working some or all of the time fiom home offers a lot of flexibility for balancing work and family requirements. Reduced need for commuting, flexibility in the organisation of working times and places, and proximity of working and family activities can all help in the logistical management of work and family life. There can also be psychosocial benefits through less stress and fatigue, as well as the enrichment, satisfaction and self-esteem that can be gained from the work, or from being able to work at ail in some cases. Perhaps not surprisingly, however, our cases show a picture of both positive and negative experiences, depending on family circumstances, the organisation of the work and a variety of other factors. The situation is often not black-andwhite and a given family may have a mix of both positive and negative experiences with a given work arrangement. Overall, however, the majority of our cases felt that some degree of home-based eWorking was preferable to more conventional arrangements and intended to maintain the arrangement. at least during critical stages of the family lifkcycle. Mix of both positive and negative experiences: Example eWorker likes her flexible work arrangement and it makes it easier for her to care for the children. She does not try to care and work at the same time and thus it is more the ‘logistics’ side of child-care management that has been improved. Now she has the flexibility to the office early and bring the children to and fiom after-school activities and then work from home during the evening when the children are in bed. However, there is also a downside to this type of work. There is the problem that work is ever present and she said that she is actually never offduty because she knows that the assignments are present at home. The result is overwork and stress. Another problem is the fact that the children (and her partner) sometimes have difficulties understanding (und accepting) when mum is in work and when she is off. Example The case study examines the family life of a highlyqualified young mother who continues to work 30 hours a week practising alternating telework. She receives a lot of support from her husband, and her daughter is looked after by a child-minder twice a week. The benefit of her new work arrangement is that she can work and also fulfil her role as a mother. Telework provides the flexibility she needs to go on working without losing touch with her career. At the Same time she can look after her daughter well. A problem arises out of the fact that her workload is hardly reduced although she now works fewer hours. She therefore has to work very efficiently to cope with everything. Furthermore she had to see the negative consequence that she was not promoted in her job, because as a teleworker and part-timer she is not sufficiently present in the office. Example Alternating telework helps a mother to reconcile work and her child. This does, however, require considerable organisational efforts to organise childcare during working hours. Planning her working hours, she strongly depends on the opening hours of kindergarten and school. The demands of her partner’sjob are great, so that he does not have much time to look after their son more. She herself accepted right from the start that it would only be partially possible to reconcile the demands of her child and her career. and thus decided in favour of her son.

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-

5.7 The importance of reversibility e Working should not be rife sentence Whilst some of our cases see their eWorking as a way of work-life balance that they wish to maintain indefinitely, others see it as something which suits (or can be tolerated) for a certain period of the lifecycle. This draws attention to the importance of reversibility - people who take up eWorking (especially home-based eWorking) need to be assured that they can revert to more ‘traditional’ work arrangements, without negative career implications, when the time is right for them.

Down-shifting as short term solution Example A man who down-shifted his career temporarily to a part-time eWork position, to undertake family and domestic responsibilities while his wife proceeded with her career development path, says, ‘ I um huppy to support my wije in her cureer umbitions ut this time) and huve tuken time out to tuke care of the.fumily, because we simply could not combine two highly responsible jull-time und give our children the jull-time cure thut we und they wish to huve. But this is u short term solution. I hope to return to the workforce fill-time within the next four yeurs or sooner i f my wife reaches u suituble stuge in her career thut she feels she cun work purt-time. Telework as short term solution Example %Is u single mother, I took up eWorking in order to provide u better balance to my workfamily situation. Coming in@om work and facing the housework; homework und other jobs became too much for me. e Working allows me to munuge some of the housework when I tuke u breukpom work and to give my children u better quality of cure. I miss the o@ce however, the conversation with other adults and the work-reluted support. I plan to go buck to the ofice when my youngest child starts secondury school. ’

5.8 Neither here nor there, neither one thing nor the other boundaries

- managing the

eWorkers, especially where working from home is involved, vary in their strategies (and in their successes) in managing the boundaries between work and family life. Some achieve a satisfactory separation or sometimes, if it suits, a satisfactory integration; others find this to be a very problematic area. Relevant factors include the preparatory training that is given by employers, the amount of experience the worker has had, the composition and activity patterns of the household, physical resourceskonstraints of the home environment, and the individual’s self-management and coping styles. Our cases show that ‘teething problems’ in the transition to the new eWorking arrangement can be a particular difliculty, as workers grapple with new technological and self-management challenges and families adjust to the new situation. In some cases, also, there can be a risk of self-exploitation by eWorkers, with long hours being worked without additional remuneration. Sometimes this results from difficulties in setting boundaries and sometimes can be related to organisational cultures and expectations. Problems in these areas vary with the sector within which the eWorker works and with their own degree of experience in self-management and management of employerkolleague expectations.

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Preparing the family for eworking Example For one eWorker and his family preparing the entire family for home based eWorking made common sense and got the issues on the table from the beginning. For example, both partners laid down the ground rules for working at home: the eworker‘s wife was not to be seen as his de fact0 secretary, and he was not to be bringing clients home for meetings. There were also discussions with the children on ways of avoiding any potential work-family conflict in advance of setting up a dedicated home office. He now works predominantly from home and books a meeting room when seeing clients. Importance of space Example eWorking simplified the family organisation for a couple with a ‘very demanding’ child. Consequently, this eWorker can spend more time with his son and his wife could continue working hll-time. They are however facing the problem of space: this teleworker hasn’t any dedicated room. Work invades the family space - he works in his son’s mom, which gives rise to conflict and tensions. He tries to keep work and family separate by ‘barricading’ himself in the little room, something which irritates his wife a lot although she admits that actually there are times in which both she and her son forget that he’s working, thus disturbing him. The most stressful times are when my son is around: I have to .finish work and he wants to play with the keyboard ...’ Self Management Example One eWorker who works predominantly from home says that ‘You have to learn to shut yourselfoflfiom the childken during working hours, especially as our childcare arrangement is so perfect ’. This eWorker and her eWorking husband have hired a lady to look after their children in their own home so they can both work from home.

5.9 The perceptions of others The perceptions of others can also be an important factor where the eWork involves a lot of working from home. In some of our cases, the immediate or extended family perceived the eWorker who works from home to be not really working and therefore to be available for household duties, childcare and so on; in other cases, there was concern that friends and neighbours thought the eWorker was unemployed or just plain lazy!

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Perception of home working by family and neighbours Example For three years he has worked as a teleworker within an experimental project set up by his employer spending three days teleworking from home and two days in the central office. His wife works full-time in a conventional work arrangement. When starting teleworking from home, this eWorker went to his neighbows to explain to them his new work arrangement. He. was afraid that, seeing him at home during the day, they might think he had lost his job. Example For this eWorker who splits his time between his home oflice, his city office and clients, the fact that his car is in the driveway at home had always signalled an open house invitation to coffee. Consequently, he has had to tactfully indicate that he is working during the daytime even though he’s at home. Another eWorker who works mainly from her home office finds that family have not fully grasped the idea of being at home and working professionally as well. She says that ‘some of the family think that it is o k q to phone me during the working dayfor a lengthy chat. They don’t understand that although I workfiom home, I am actually working and not available all the time to chat. They’rejust not used to the idea yet ’. Example He gave up working from a home-base and, together with a colleague, rented an office which is located in the city centre. The reason for discontinuing the new work arrangement was because he has to deal with customers where there is a lot of coming and going, which required him and his wife to ensure that the house was clean and the children did not leave toys lying around, so that it looked somewhat ‘oflcial’.Between rumours and interruptions fiom neighbours who assumed that he had either become unemployed (since he was around during the day) or was not seriously working but ‘lying around in the garden enjoying working time us leisure rime ’, he no longer teleworks. All these factors had a negative impact on family life. He even says that he would have been divorced by now if he had continued in this new form of work organisation.

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5.10 Who's minding the children? No substitutefor childcare Some forms of eWork can provide more flexibility in time and place for fmily matters. However, although there are exceptions, in most cases the eWorkers use this flexibility to better manage their work times and places around their childcare arrangements (crkhe. school, after-school, childminders; and so on) and around aspects like the morning preparations for work and schoolkhildcare, but not to enable them to care for their children themselves whilst they are actually working. There is a considerable demand for better quality, cheaper and more time-flexible external childcare facilities as well as an indication that in some cases families are choosing in-home child-mindm to care for their children whilst the eWorker works. Particularly problematic areas in some countries include afterschool care and after-hours care.

Bad experience with care for children whilst working Example Over the last years, he has frequently changed his work form due to family requirements. After the birth of the first child he took paternity leave for 6 months and for a further 6 months he worked 3 days a week, 2 days in the office and one day at home. His little son was with a child-minder on his office days; on home working days he looked after the child in parallel to his work. During this time, his wife worked full time in the office. However. he would not do this again because he had a permanent guilty conscience about neglecting one of his two duties. Often he had to move his work to the evening hours which. again, was bad for his partner who only came home fiom work in the evenings.

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Managing work around children’s timetable

Example 4 mother of three, two of whom are school-going, manages her part-time eWork workload xound her children’s school timetables. The youngest child attends a child-minder during these hours to give his mother the dedicated time she needs to work ‘Idrop the children ta whool or the child-minder, when I return I cleun up the kitchen and at 10 a.m. I start work. 1 finish work ut 2.30 p.m., turn off my PC, file my work and go to collect the children. ’

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In home child-minder Example In this couple, both parents are eworking. The father eWorks hll-time and the mother parttime. They have three young children, one of whom is school-going. In order to get the dedicated time they need to do their work, they employ a child-minder to care for theii children in their own home on three fhll days per week. ' Tueshy, Wednesday a d Thwsdcrq is our core working time. We both do as much work as possible during this time. On the other days and fi necessmy at the weekend, we prioritise who needs to work according ta work deadlines and the other person takes care of the children. Ninety percent of the time this plan works very well though occasionally we argue about whose work is more important. * Demand for better childcare facilities This example deals with a single mother h m an outlying rural area who works in a nearby telework centre. During her working hours her 2-year-old daughter is looked afler by a childminder. She can cope with this multiple workload thanks to this childcare solution, her parents' support and because of relinquishing her own spare time. She would like the government to provide more affordable childcare facilities as in other countries. There, crkhes enable young mothers to combine work and family. It is particularly difficult to find childcare facilities in rural areas as strong family ties still exist there and demand is consequently comparatively low. Employers could also do more in this respect. However, this depends on the size of the business. In her opinion, small employers like hers have no opportunities. Private childcare services must remain affordable for families.

5.11 Back to the future, back to the kitchen sink? duties

- Sharing of

household

The flexibility gains tiom changes in the time and/or place of work can have varying impacts on the sharing of family work and on perceived or actual equity. This is often a highly gendered issue. In some cases (typically where the male partner takes up home w o w ) there may be an improvement in the degree of equity in this aspect of family life and in some cases (typically where the female partner takes up home working) there m a y be a disimprovement. On the other hand, however, our cases do show a number of examples where the male partner used eWorking to down-shift his own career trajectory for a while in order to take over more family responsibilitiesand so enable his partner to progress her own career.

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Degree of equity Example A woman with one child becomes a full-time eWorker in order to combine her full-time job with caring for her daughter after school. ‘Because I was at home all duy, my partner began to expect me to undertake the entire domestic responsibiiify. I had to make him see that I wm working fill-time too and that he would still h e to do his fair share of housework and childcare. We argued a lot for theJirst couple of weeks until things were sorted out. ’ Example With the telework centre he found a workplace close to his home. Because of the much shorter commuting distance and his two-thirds position he has significantly more time for his family. Previously, when he was still working full time and his wife part time she still did almost all the housework. With the new work arrangements the share of domestic duties has also changed fkndamentally. He feels there is a 5050 split for both partners. Now it is much easier for him to combine work and the demands of the children (‘like day and night’). Previously ‘he was always fidgeting at work when the children were alone at home’. When he came home stressed there was no time to check the children’s homework and this was reflected in their achievements at school. All this was reason for him to change his work.

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5.I2 Doing it (all)yourself- lone parent families Single parent families, including separated couples who share custody of their children and parents with only limited access to their children, often face particular challenges in balancing work and family requirements. Where the parental role is a full-time one, the absence of a partner reduces flexibility in meeting family requirements. Where the parental role is a parttime one (e.g. where a child or children live partly with one parent and partly with the other. or where access is limited) there can be a particular desire for ‘quality time’ during periods of access. In both situations, our cases indicate that the increased flexibility offered by eWorking fiom home can sometimes be very helpful. However. limited degrees of M o m and resources can mean that greater compromises and trade-offs are required of single parents, such as putting up with poorer quality conditions or trying to work and manage children at the same time. i Greater flexibility and more autonomy I Example A self-employed single mother finds that, ‘One of the great things about being a Porrfolio worker is that I can spend time with my daughter when I want. I can turn down work i f / feel, we need to spend more rime together und she gets involved in some of the things I do ’ I

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Desire for quality time Example Divorce forces people to re-evaluate their lives particularly where there are children. This is also the case for a management consultant. His daughter spends weekends and a lot of the school holidays with him. This is only possible because he can work flexibly. By reorganising his working life he has found that he is now able to ‘be there’ for her more. He does this through long-distance telecommuting and having two homes, one in the family neighbourhood and the other in the city near his office. Three days a week he works in the ofice, the other two he teleworks from home. Less time to herself Example A lone parent with three children finds that while her part-homdpart-office work arrangement helps her to better manage her joint full-time work and full-time parenting role, it gives her very little time to herself ‘Iam always either bringing the children to school or an activity or driving between work and the o@e. I never seem to have any time to myself: When I was based in the ofice fill-time, at least I was able to b e a lunch break I could meetJiiendr. yo shopping or just have time to myself Now my lunchtime is t a k n up with moving around 2nd in the evenings it is taken up with the children. I would prefer a fill-time ofice job. but for the moment this is the best solution for my family ’

Example Being divorced and having a school-going daughter, with no extended family for support and not being able to afford childcare suits teleworking. This single mother says ‘teleworking is very good jor me, because it is consistent with my jumily commitments.‘ What flexibility she has in the job, she uses for the benefit of her daughter and she feel less guilty and less Frustrated by knowing that she can be there for her. On the other hand the constant singlehanded care combined with her work means she has little or no time for herself’: ’I find it dificult to do things for m-vself.’

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5.13 Working and caring Families with dependants who have special needs Individuals and families who are caring for dependants with special needs, such as elderly relatives or childredadults with disabilities, also face particular challenges in balancing work and family requirements. Public services such as day care centres and in-home care services have a key role to play in these situations but our cases suggest that these are not always available or are not organised in a manner that meets families’ needs. The cases do show, however, that the increased flexibility in some eWork arrangements can offer new solutions to the challenges faced by families in these circumstances. They also show the dilemmas that are often posed for people wishing to combine working and caring, and the importance of work (outside the home) as a respite from caring in some cases.

Flexibility offers new solutions Example The example deals with an alternating teleworker who, in parallel with her work, looked after and companioned her father until his death. Without telework she would have had to take unpaid leave or put her father in a home. She says, ‘Without telework none of this would have been possible. Telework was u Godsend’. Because his decline into illness happened so fast he would not have been mentally prepared for a stay in a care home, apart fiom thesfact that no care places were available in the vicinity. Considering the situation in care homes and in particular the care staff she is very happy that her father did not have to go there. ‘Every day thut a dependunt needing cure does not have to go into a home is u duy gained Telework should temporurily he mude pos.sible,fiw everyone in thut situution ’.

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Example A young mother with a severely disabled child and her partner both work for the same

organisation, alternating telework fiom home. The present arrangement is the only possibility for her to maintain her job and income. The child in fact, requires continuous care. He is looked after in a public nursery for a few hours a day but he frequently and suddenly falls ill and often needs medical care. Without telework it would have been impossible for this worker to keep the traditional arrangement she used to have before the birth of her child. On the other hand, the modest economic situation doesn’t allow this couple to rely on one income only. The choice for this eWorker was strongly supported by the organisation she and her partner work for - in fact they have been allowed to work out their schedules in such a way that one of them is always at home. Example In this couple, the mother chose to continue working shifts after the birth of their first child because he has a mild disability and needed to attend almost weekly appointments with a variety of specialists in his early years. ‘Workingshz3.s meam that I can take my son to his appointments and continue to work,Jirll-time. I would not h e been able to manage u job with traditionul hours, because even the best boss in the world would not have been able to let me huve the time of I needed to attend appointments. ‘ Example This person has a child with multiple disabilities who normally lives at a sheltered home and visits the family during the weekend. Before the uptake of her shiftworking arrangement, the respondent had problems with the caie arrangement. She felt that she had too little time together with the child. She was brought to the home fiom the care institution on Friday evening and they had to bring her back Sunday afternoon, leaving them with only limited time to spend together at home. The shiftworking arrangement is chamctaised by working 14 days in a row and the 14 days off-duty. This is very beneficial for the respondent and her child because they now have more time to spend together in blocks and thus the quality is much better.

Work as a respite from caring Example This eWorker feels that his working arrangement has had a positive influence on the family. He used to work full-time in the office and commute daily for 3 hours. Nowadays, he works fewer days and spends 50% of his time split between home and office. His relationship with his wife is better and she has more time for herself because he is more involved in what he zalls the ‘domestic drudgery’ of the household. Another eWorker, who works entirely fiom his home office, finds that his eWorking m g e m e n t has been positive for all his family. Before eWorking his work was a constant source of stress. His wife, who takes care of the children full-time, says that, ‘the children w e really benej7tingPom having their father around They huve a great relationship with him and it is a high point for the children, particularly our eldest daughter. to come and visit their father in his office afier school. He also 1ooks.forward to vi.sit.s.fi.omthe children in the Tfiernoon.7*.

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5.14 Couples without children Couples without children typically have much greater degrees of freedom and, at least potentially, greater resources for managing work-life balance. Our cases, however, present something of a mixed picture, with some couples without children exploiting the flexibility and other opportunities (such as for self-employment) that eWorking can offer, but others running the risk of over-work and a tendency towards ‘all work and no play’, to the detriment of personal and family life and of relationships.

Exploiting the flexibility Example The example deals with a couple where both partners practise alternating telework. Both perceive it as pleasant to be working at home in their own disturbance-free surroundings and value the increased control they have of their time and the use they make of it. On teleworking days they can have breakfast as long as they wish, without one ofthem having to rush to work urgently. Thanks to this flexibility they can also go shopping for durable goods (e.g. h i t u r e , bicycles) during the week and do not have to do this on the busy Friday afternoon or Saturday. ‘Myhusband can go jogging ifheJee1.s like it. It is more comfortable ij you can be within your own four walls. Sometimes I can sit at my tele-workplace in casuai clothes or even in my bathrobe with wet hair and do not always have to be overdressed. ’ Example Telework has enabled one female partner to successfully integrate work and private life. For example, she appreciates the compatibility of her work with everyday duties like shopping and other positive impacts in her social life, such as being able to meet friends for coffee on occasions. Now she can combine her hobbies with her work arrangements better and can spend more time in her own surroundings - for example, she can have lunch in her own garden. It is an advantage for her that her partner also teleworks. The shared telework, in her opinion, leads to more discipline at work.

Risk of overwork Example A couple with no children, where the man is a fieelance consultant who is self-employed and home-based, finds that he is inclined to work very long hours. ‘Thefact that the ofice is jusf upstairs, it is very tempting to slip up and do a couple of hours in the evening or at the weekend Sometimes I don’t even notice that I have been up there all evening. When I have a big project on, I$& that if I am sitting downstairs in the evening I am continually thinking ubout work. It would be nice to be able to close the o@ce door and walk away.’ Example This eWorker works hard. He always thought about work a lot, and now that he can work from home his mind never switches off. His wife does not know whether he is ‘hopeless or if it is just telework!’. His difficulty is in drawing a boundary between work and family. ‘My mind works all the time. In the evening if something crops up I go to the s t u 4 and turn on the computer. It is drfJicult to set up limits, time goes by and you do not realise, and you grow old.’ From the start, things did not go very well, despite attending an employer-hded telework training course covering all the technological and psychological tips and tricks one would need to know. ‘It’s incredible the time telework stea1,vkomyou. It is hard to believe but contact with my wije have diminished, and I jeel I am letting her down. ’

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5. I5 Single people It must also be remembered that single people are part of families too and that some play a key role in caring for elderly relatives. Our cases show that eWorking can present both positive and negative sides in these situations. For some, the flexibility enables a better balancing of work and care requirements; for others. going out to work in a 'traditional' office is a respite from caring!

Examples Flexibility enables better balancing This man works shifts and adopted this arrangement by chance, as it was the only work he got after finishing school. However, it turned out to be a very good solution for balancing work and family care. He can easily look after his elderly father and deal with his health problems. booking and accompanying him to medical appointments. In fact, he can organise himself by exploiting shifts and also by exchanging shiftdduties with colleagues. His main concern is that working shifts and caring sometimes involves increased stress and fatigue as it means 'steuling time-fiomsleep'.

Traditional work would be a respite This single person living with his elderly mother adopted his current arrangement of homebased telework with the aim of carrying out work and care duties. This choice brought both positive and negative impacts. Overall, while care is facilitated, his extended presence at home makes it difficult to mange the boundaries and his mother's attitude is becoming quite intrusive. 'She doesn't see telework us the same status a s ofice work Before she would never phone me at the ofice, now she comes into my studio anytime she has u small prohlem. She also tends to interfere with my choices.' The current arrangement is suitable for the moment, however, this eWorker is thinking of going back to a more traditional working model.

5.16 The role of technology Although work-family issues are more related to personal, social, organisational, labour market and structural factors than to technology per se, IST technology and its applications have a central relevance for eWork and its implications for work-family reconciliation and balance. Technological developments are drivers of new configurations of work in time and place, enablers of more flexibility in working times and places and, increasingly, mediators of work-family interactions. In relation to working from home, our cases suggest that whilst the technology was generally judged to be adequate, if less than perfect, there is a demand for higher bandwidth, for home networks to enable working from anywhere within the home, and for specific tools to support conferencing and other forms of collaborative working. Mobile workers indicated a demand for better quality andor higher bandwidth mobile services. Overall, the extent to which eWorkers perceive that they have technological requirements seems to vary with their degree of technological literacy; those who are more technologically literate (and interested) are more likely to have higher expectations and to be able to identify applications and services that could benefit them in their work. Finally. in a number of cases the eWorkers had a lot of difficulty in gaining the necessary technical competence for working on their own, and the need for better training and technical support is an important issue for the diffusion ofeworking.

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Technological requirements Example Wanted higher bandwidth access to better facilitate eWork An on-call worker with a one week in five on-call duty finds that the technology he has is no1 sufficient to manage the on-call aspect of his job from home. ‘Igot un ISDN line into the house at my own expense to see if it would make a di#erence to my work. Iprovide technicui support to a number of’companies and need to login to their systems to help solve the problem remotely. There is a huge di2erence working with ISDN and it would be even better with some higher access bandwidth. Having tested it, I am going to upply to the company to install u higher bandwidth ucce.s.s into my home tofacilitate my on-call work. ’

eWorker requires better access A self-employed eWorker: ‘Myjob involves technical drawing. It would be very useful jor me to huve u plotter rather than a printer jor my drawings and also to huve access to higher bandwidth telecoms for sending drawings by emuil and receiving them from clients. However, because I am selj~employedand the technology is still quite expensive, I tend to think that it is not worth the investment at the moment. HopeJirlly prices will come down in the neur.future. ’

5.1 7 Sharing ISTs between work and familj - conflict or synergy? In relation to bringing work into the home, the question of how work-related and familyrelated uses of information and communication technologies will interact is raised - will they be compatible and synergistic or will they be incompatible and in conflict? In fact, our cases suggest that bringing work and work-related technology into the home can be a catalyst for increased technological interest and knowledge amongst other family members, including both partners and children. The cases also suggest that work-family conflicts over technology are not generally a major issue and, when they do arise, it tends to be in poorly prepared or under-resourced implementations (e.g. a single PSTN line for both work and family purposes). There are also some indications of emerging market opportunities for applications and services for the home and family, including household LANs, routers and so on. Some of the more technologically sophisticated households already have these types of facility in place, sometimes implemented on a do-it-yourself basis, but most get by so far with little or no home networking.

Catalyst for increased technological interest Example A senior manager in a large corporation is a technology enthusiast who works a lot and plays a lot on his computer after-hours. He has a notebook computer and in the family living room there is a PC connected to the Internet via an ISDN link. One consequence has been that the whole family has become quite technologically oriented. The parents use email to help organise things and they share an electronic calendar so that each can make sure that business and family appointments do not clash. He also sees potential for extending the use of technology into other areas of their lives - for example in dealing with the logistics of childcare and on-line shopping for groceries.

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Example A director with two children eWorks one day per week from his home office and also most evenings and sometimes at weekends, checking emails, planning ami so on. This has a f’xilitating impact on the other family members, motivating them to use PCs, email and internet themselves. There are no conflicts between his work needs and other family members over access to or usage of any ICTquipment or services. Each family member (except the 5 year old son) uses hidher own PC connected to the internal LAN with access to the ISDN and internet via an access router. The mobile phone, in particular, is sometimes used to meet family needs whilst working on business trips. Email has also become increasingly important in this respect. It is used to send off brief messages and information which help organising things between the partners. The daughter has started to join in this type of organising family M e via email and SMS. It can be expected that this type of use of instantaneous messaging will increase between the household members when the household is connected to ADSL and makes use of a flat rate.

Sophisticated use of technology Example An on-call worker with a 24/7, 365 on-call duty has set up an office in his home. ‘Work is

!ike a hobby to me. Iprovide the sole technical support to the companies many offices. I am a technology b u i I h m e j v e networked PCs at home, two laptops a router, a web cam, CI scanner, a digital camera and a printer. I simulate problem on the PCs at home. I would !ike to have a switched Ethernet hub. an ISDN router. ADSL link and a server or maybe even dsu

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Example

The eWorker works primady h m home as a Writer, consultant and concept-inventor. At qome he has a lot of ICT and he has a vision of the total digital home, where work, leisure :ime and family life melts together. The main technology used is the laptop computer with an 2ttached web-cam and he has the possibility of being on-line all the time without the Jaditional problems with lines and connecting points. He has a very fast ADSL line and in ddition he has installed a wireless Bluetooth-based network that covers his entire property. lhus he can work wherever he wants and this is very important for his work style. Creativity Isthe keyword for his work and he argues that he cannot be creative if he has to sit in h n t of :he computer at a fixed location; instead he works all over the property - in the kitchen. the living room and even in the garden (of course on-line all the time). kxample [ST has a fundamental role within this eWorker’s activity, both as a support to his business md as a work instrument since its activity consists of supplying consultancy to his customers: ‘my business has always meant to bring the technology inside companies. ’ He uses his car as m additional office; for each client he has a briefcase of files in the boot. The car bristles with :ommunications: two mobile phones, PowerMac laptop, and wireless Internet. His dream is! me day to equip a passenger van with all the required computer and satellite communications md work fiom there all the time.

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5.18 Techno-futures:technology at the work-family interface Developments in information and communication technologies are presenting us with new concepts and new ways of providing care for family members. Mobile phones and SMS are becoming an integral tool in enabling parents to keep in touch with their children whilst the parents are working. Webcams are already being used to check on the wellbeing of children at the creche and could, at least in principle, be extended to keeping an eye on children at home after school. Alarm systems and home monitoring systems are already being used to support the safety and wellbeing of older people living alone or who are alone during working hours. In the hture, video and mobile monitoring of elderly dependants by eWorkers could conceivably become commonplace. Our cases suggest a certain degree of ambivalence about these types of video-based applications, however. In general, there was not much enthusiasm, with considerably more interest in the use of video technology to support eldercare than to support childcare.

Technology to help work-family balancing - pro and con Examples A project manager and his wife use their office phone or their mobile phone almost every day to discuss private affairs or sort out family matters. In addition, he sometimes also uses the fax machine (for example to fax home work back and forth) or exchanges mails with his wife. In their opinion the existing ICT technologies are absolutely sufficient. ‘The telephone is still the most important, all else are toys. ’ He declines further advanced technologies such as video link or remote observation equipment. His wife is of the same opinion. One eWorker and his wife can see possible applications for new ISTs for family purposes during working time. He already uses online-shopping, e.g. technology for private purposes online. He also wants to install an alarm system at home to monitor his house and the surroundings via Webcam. His wife also thinks of their elderly aunt in this context. She can see that usefulness of video connectivity to monitor dependant adults in need of care in later years.

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5.19 Useful supports What could facilitate the difsusion and sustainability of e Working Our cases suggest that whilst some forms of eWorking offer considerable potential for improving work-family balance, a variety of supports are needed if these benefits are to be realised and the diffusion and sustainability of eWorking is to be maximised. Wider availability of suitable childcare and eldercare services would make an important contribution for families in particular circumstances or at particular stages of the lifecycle, giving more options and choices in relation to whether and how to use home-based working as a necessary/desired solution. More consideration of family needs in the design of eWorking arrangements is also needed, for example in the design of shift schedules and in the flexibility and choice of schedules offered to shift-workers. Better preparation of eWorkers and their families by employers will also be necessary; workers need technical and self-management skills, and families need to be prepared for the changes associated with eWorking. More generally, the wider workforce needs to be better equipped with the technical skills and selfmanagement skills that are required; and everyone (family members, neighbours, employers and work colleagues) need to become more aware of and understanding of what eWorking involves and of its legitimacy as ‘real’ work.

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Examples Demand for childcare for out-of-hours work A single mother who has occasional foreign travel as part of her work contract finds it very 1 difficult to get childcare cover for the nights when she has to be away from home overnight. 'Bubysitters will only stay until 1 u.m. or so. I need someone who will sleep over. who I can trust and with whom my son will he happy on the occasiom thut I um uway overnight. It is1 very dificult to orgunise and I rely on jriends und.Jumily members to help me out. I would prefer some type offi,rrnul childcure for overnight stays e.g. Kids' Hotel as there ure in the I USA. I don't likefeeling under a compliment when I need childcure. ' Need for better design of eWorking arrangements A couple with two young children both work full time. The mother has a rotating shift schedule, which changes each week and includes working an early shift, an afternoon shift and a late eveninghight shift. Her shift pattern means that on some weeks she does not see her husband at all on a working day and she only sees the children for short periods of time. 'We huve a telephone relutiomhip on these duyx Also. on these days my husband does most ofthe childcure and domestic work I know thut he is beginning to feel irritated about this und thinks that the housework should he shured more equally. Unfortunutely with the sh$ vattern it is just not possible on at least two of the four shijis. My previous shift scheduIe was much better, I hud longer perioh offbetween ships und even though I hud u night shift which started ut 9 p.m., at leust I got to have dinner with the family uncl put the kids to bed bejore 1 went out. A change in the ship schedule would be better. ' Need for preparatory training to take up eWork A woman with one child applies to her employer to make her position an eWork mangement, so that she can take care of her daughter in the afternoons herself while continuing to work full-time. 'It was great when they ugreed to let me try out eWorking. 1 gm theJirst person in the company to do it and as such no one has uny experience of e Work This is my j@h month doing it. At @rst things were diflcult. I hud to establish how to wrange my working time, how to set up communications with the oflce, how to manage my @ice-based work In addition, I had to learn to use new items of technology. It realiy was trial and error. I felt that there should be someone there to advise me on all this. Also, because I was at home all duy, my partner began to expect me to undertake the entire domestic responsibility. I had to make him see thut I was working fill-time too and that he woulds~illhuve to do hisfair share ofhousework and childcare ' Employers could do more to help Example I'his single mother works shifts (call handling) and is able to continue working because her parents take care of childcare but she feels that employers could do more to help. Whilst she has an understanding supervisor and manager, she feels that the company could do more to facilitate work family balance, perhaps by providing childcare facilities on site, extending telework to her department, or even allowing individuals with families to stick to one shift 3attern, such as the I I :30-19:30 shift. She says that 'Flexibility[of employment] should be a "given ", not ut the whim or the mood of u supervisor' I

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5.20 The centrality of gender as always!

Our cases clearly show the centrality of gender in all of this. To begin with, the decision to adopt a particular form of eWorking and the reasons for that decision are often highly gendered. Our cases suggest that women are more likely to adopt home-based eWorking for family reasons, while men are more likely to do it for personal or work-related reasons. Other forms of eWorking (such as on-call and shift-working) are less likely to be adopted for family reasons and, amongst our cases, some of the forms that can be particularly disruptive of family life (such as on-call working) are more likely to be found amongst men than amongst women, at least in situations where there are significant family responsibilities. Gendered factors are important in determining how the benefits fiom eWorking are distributed within the family. When compromises have to be made to meet family needs, our cases suggest that women are more likely to be the ones whose situations have to give, for example, by having to accept negative career implications or social isolation. There are exceptions, however, and some of the cases show examples of men downshifting to take on more family responsibilities and thereby support their partner's career development. For some men, also, certain forms of eWorking (including home-based working by themselves and sometimes shift working by themselves or their partners) are encouraging them to become more involved in family life. Our cases show examples of men becoming more involved as parents through eWorking and of separated men using eWorking to maintain contact with their children or to have quality time with them when they have access.

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Finally, although the cases suggest that eWorking may sometimes improve the sharing of domestic tasks in two-partner families (e.g. when the man works fiom home or on some shift schedules), there is little indication of any truly radical changes in this arena as of yet. In fact, some cases show that there is a risk that when women go home to work they can be expected to adopt an increased domestic burden as well, reinforcing or exacerbating existing inequalities. In conclusion, it is clear that gendered attitudes and practices in relation to paid work and household work will need to be tackled if the benefits of eWorkng are to be shared f&ly in relation to reconciling and re-balancing participation in both the work and family domains. both within individual families and between men and women more generally.

Men more involved with families Example

When this eWorker asked his employers for overtime to pay for childcare they suggested that he-consider working h m home instead. He jumped at the opportunity - it meant he could spend more time with his son and his wife could continue working hll-time. The new work organisation has allowed him to spend more time with his son. thus sharply improving the balance between the father and the professional role.

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Example

His partner is shiftworking on a four week rotating shift schedule and as a result he has to undertake a most of the caring and household jobs on the two weeks when she is working afternoon and late eveningnight shifts. ‘Icollect the children,feed them and put them to bed. I also try to catch up on any housework that my wife didn’t manage to do bejbre going to work. She changed shijts about two years ago and this shijt system is very poor. We have very little time together and I am beginning to resent the amount of domestic work which.falls on me. It is dificult with ufill-time job to manage this way of working. ’

Female took up more domestic role: Example

‘When I decided to work part-time, it was because the travel and fill-time uspects ojmy job were incompatible with myfamily lije. iV& husband is alAsotrying to start up his own businen and works 70-80 hour weeks. We agreed that I would continue my job part-time and in thar wuy, I will be more uvuilablefor the children. I also do all the domestic work. I decided to do this so that the housework will be under control, the children will be happier and when mj husband comes inkom work he can relux and we can chut. Before this when we both came in from afiII duy at work, there was little timetorfamily lqe and conversation. ’ Example

A mother lives with her husband and two adolescent sons. While she works part-time in a call centre, her husband earns the major part of the family income as an executive. She is mainly in charge of carrying out family duties. She feels she is 95% responsible for doing the housework and 70% responsible for bringing up the children. This takes a high toll on her and she is particularly unhappy with the sharing of household work. Because of the new work arrangement she has more responsibilities and she would like ‘the others to get involved in the housework more. ’

5.21 National variations FAMILIES is a heuristic and qualitative study which does not at all claim to be representative. It is for this reason that the country specific differences are not a focal point of the study. Nevertheless, there are some marked country-specific issues, which will be dealt with briefly here. It is for example striking that in Germany alternating teleworking is by far the dominant form of home-based working, whereas in Ireland it is permanent home-based teleworking. Also the local prerequisites for home-based working differ across the countries. In Italy and Ireland, quite a few eWorkers have to work in rooms which are also used for other purposes. The reasons for starting eWorking also differ quite substantially and are heavily influenced by the availability and quality of caring facilities for children and elderly people. Denmark ranks top in this respect. Accordingly the personal and work-related reasons to start eWorking dominate iri Denmark, and family reasons are given for starting with a new way of working in far fewer situations. This is different in Germany. Here many interviewees complain about the rather poor availability of care institutions - especially in the Western part (old Federal states) - and criticise the short hours of availability of care personnel in schools and kindergarten. What seem to be missing are afternoon care services including the provision of lunches and a lack of flexibility in opening and usage times of kindergarten. These shortcomings have resulted in a very high demand for temporal and locational flexibility in the job to better combine work and family.

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There are also some indications of differences concerning the ICT availability in the different countries. In countries like Denmark and Germany there do not Seem to be many problems in getting the employer pay for good quality equipment. its instailation and use. In Ireland, there seem to be problems with access to a higher quality telecommunications infiastructure in rural areas.

5.22 Conclusions The following are the main conclusions to be drawn from the FAMILIES project. The issue of work-fmily balance and reconciliation in the context of eWorking is a critical one, not only from the perspective of developing eWorking, but also from the perspective of the social and quality of life consequences for eWorkers and their families. There is a lack of awareness amongst employers, trade unions and potential eWorkers of how to maximise the benefits ofeworking. Awareness raising programmes are needed. The success of eWorking arrangements for eWorkers with care responsibilities is critically dependent on the availability of support services in terms of care for children and the elderly. A key element in the success of eWorking arrangements concerns placing the worker at the centre of the arrangement. eWorkers need to have significant input into the design of such arrangements.

The interactions between work and family life for eWorkers can be very complex. There are no certainties with regard to the suitability of specific types of eWorking as the family circumstances of the eWorker play a major role in shaping perceptions of success.

ICT infkastructures can play a major role in determining the success of eWork arrangements. However, there was evidence that some eWorkers did not have sufficient access to the necessary infrastructures either to perform their job to an optimal level or to enable them to engage in the kind of'care provision they would like. There was evidence that many eWorkers viewed this work arrangement as being temporary and that it was chosen for reasons of family demands. There was some evidence from the case studies that eWork could enable people to either reenter the labour force or to remain in the labour force. From the employers' perspective. there was evidence that family friendly eWorking arrangements were useful-inhelping to retain valued staff. Some forms of eWorking proved to be very demanding on eWorkers and their families, including some forms of shift working and on-call working. In many of these cases. the eWorker viewed eWorking as being only a temporary arrangement. There is a need for employers of eWorkers to provide reentry packages into 'traditional' work arrangements at the time when eWorkers wish to give up eWorking arrangements.

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There was evidence from the case studies that some eWorking arrangements were less than optimal in terms of working conditions, hours, and levels of psychosocial stress. There is a need for regulatory authorities to address this issue. There is a need to examine the full range of policies that affect eWorking and eWorkers simultaneously and in a comprehensive way. In particular, there is a need to ensure that economic and technology policies take account of the full range of social policies that impinge on work and family life. There is a need for further research into the impacts of eWorking on family life. In particular, there is a need to gain a more comprehensive understanding of the interactions between the full range of eWorking types on the 111 range of family types. Particular attention should be paid to the supports needed to enable optimal eWorking and to the potentially negative impacts on family life of eWorking arrangements. The FAMILIES project proposes that there is a need to undertake benchmarking with regard to work-family balance and reconciliation issues. This should dso include a focus on related policy areas such as health and safety and child and elder care.

Chapter 6 Implicationsfor policy and recommendations This Chaptex seeks to identify the policy and other implications and recommendations that can be derived from the work of the FAMILIES project.

6.1 About the recommendations These recommendations are based on the lessons learnt from the FAMILIES project about the experiences of different types of families with different types of eWork in four European countries: Denmark, Germany, Ireland and Italy. The main contribution from FAMILIES is to provide indications as to how eworking, and related IST (Information Society Technologies) technologies where relevant, can affect reconciliation (i.e. the compatibility between family responsibilities and work), balance (i.e. quality of work and family life), as well as equal opportunities. The objective of the recommendations is to indicate the actions which need to be taken to promote IST and eWork developments that enable sustainable work-family interactions and which support higher participation and employment rates, especially of people with family or care responsibilities. The recommendations also aim to improve the quality of the workfmily outcomes that arise from the various eWork arrangements and to favour equal opportunities. The recommendations address policy makers. employers, trade unions, citizen organisations, and the IST community. 6.1.1

Thep o k y space addressed by FAMILIES

The main areas of policy where the FAMILIES project can contribute are in the employmentkocial side, specifically: Mechanisms of promoting employment Quality (of working and family life) In addition, the results k m the project also ha-le implications for equality policies. particularly in relation to gender issues. There are also two main areas on the Information Society/eEurope side, i.e. ISTs and eWork. From the FAMILIES project perspective the policy ideal would be to promote IST and eWork developments that enable work-family interactions that are supportive of a virtuous circle in the three employment/social areas, with developments in each of the three areas reinforcing each other. FAMILIES made a distinction between two levels or types of work-family interaction:

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Reconciliation (compatibility between family responsibilities and the extent of being able to work at all and/or maintain career trajectory). Balance (the quality of the work-family outcomes that arise under different work-family arrangements).

The main contribution fiom FAMILIES is to provide indications as to how eWorking (and related IST technologies where relevant) can affect reconciliation andor balance, and their cost-benefit implications for the various family stakeholders, and through this affect outcomes at the policy priorities of employment mechanisms, quality and equal opportunities.

6.2 Policy recornmendationsfor action The recommendations from the FAMILIES project are organised according to the four main target groups: Policy makers Employers Tradeunions Citizens and Family organisations

6.3 Policy makers The FAMILIES study showed that all forms of eWork which allow freedom fiom time and space constraints can, to different extents, help the reconciliation of work and family. However this process is not automatic. Policy *initiatives in the employment, gendedequal opportunities, Information Society and RTD/technology areas must be taken to maximise the opportunities for work-family reconciliation, enhanced quality and equal opportunities. 63.1

Actions snpporting reconciliation

Employment policies should focus specifically on the flexibility impacts of eWork, which can be positive and disruptive for family life. They are positive when they allow the reconciliation of family care needs or other engagements, they are negative when they lead to forms of work intensification or exploitation, or introduce other rigidities (for example in shift-based work) which disrupt family rhythms.

1. Employment policies should aim to assess and raise awareness among the social partners and business organisations about the costs and benefits of implementing flexible work arrangements based on eWorking. The public sector could provide best practice experiences from which to learn. It is important to raise awareness amongst employers that implementing forms of eWorking that provide worker-centred flexibility, and improve satisfaction and the quality of life of workers, can lead to long-term benefits for employers in terms of lower turnover, better motivation and reduced needs for retraining of the workforce. Moreover, flexible work

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arrangements can meet the needs of workers in specific phases of their lives (for example caring for small children or dependants). Employers will also benefit by retaining or recovering qualified personnel. 2. Actions should be taken to raise awareness among workers of the benefits and

problems of different types of eWork, of their rights and the scope for personal initiative and professional growth. Workers (potential eWorkers) also need to be targeted in awareness-raising activities.

3. Employment policies should recognise that eWork can improve employability through skills development and professional growth, with increased autonomy, productivity, and self-management capabilities. Employment policies should create the conditions to promote eWork experimentation and large-scale implementation by employers. eWork should be encouraged by creating incentives for employers to improve eworkers’ professional growth and the related outcomes for status, career, and pay. On the other hand, the types ofeWork which lead to the marginalisation of workers in dead-end jobs without any chance of professional growth should be discouraged in the framing of policy. 4. Employment policies in relation to eWork should be gender-proofed.

The results From the FAMILIES project show that gendered factors can play a central role in relation to reasons for adopting eWorking and in determining the impacts that it has for eWorkers and for other members of their families. Close attention to these factors, particularly in relation to gender proofing worklfmily policies, will be needed to ensure that the wider adoption of eWorking results in more equality of opportunities for both women and men.

EU and national levels should a d d m the development, maintenance and upgrading of the organisational, technical and selfmanagement skills required by eWork.

5. Training and education policies at

Technical skills training is often provided by employers to eWorkers, but the FAMILIES study indicates that organisational and self-management skills are also necessary, particularly in the case of self-empioyment. The blurring of boundaries between traditional working relationships, eWork types and self-employment leads to new training and life-long learning needs which must be taken into consideration by the educational system. 6. Training and education policy should target the training needs of non-employees to

avoid degrading their professional skills and status. This goal could be included in the e-Europe Action Plan measures for life-long learning and the digital literacy of workers.

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7. Governments should promote good quality child and elder care services Childcare and eldercare services play an important role in determining the viability, sustainability and success of eWorking arrangements, especially in the case of women eWorkers. Good quality services in these areas need to be made available by Governments.

8. The potential to support family-friendly forms of eWork through fiscal instruments should be explored Creating a fiscal environment that supports people who are eWorking is quite complex and can vary from country to country, however, efforts should be made to provide financial instruments and fiscal supports to eWorkers. For example, support for equipment and utilities.

6.3.2

Actions supporting quality of work and equal opportunities

A major finding ofthe study is that eWork can provide more flexibility in time and place for care duties, but that it is no substitute for childcare and supporting services, since in most cases eWorkers cannot work and care at the same time. Moreover, they do not wish to do so, they would prefer to use their flexibility to free up time and improve the quality of their relationships while relying on external help during their working time. Typically the role of carer falls to women; sometimes it is a single woman that undertakes the caring responsibility for an ageing parent and sometimes it is a mother with children of her own as well (the socalled ‘sandwich generation’). These considerations suggest the following recommendations. 1. The EU and governments should engage in cross cutting policy formation and monitoring.

The emergence of eWorking raises issues at the intersection of economic, social and information society policies. Flexibilisation in the time and place of work is being driven by both economic (e.g. globalisation and the 24-hour economy) and social (e.g. new lifestyle aspirations of workers) developments, facilitated by the new technologies and services of the information society. It is important that cross cutting policy perspectives are developed in order to maximise synergies and avoid conflicts between economic and social objectives.

2. The EU and governments should incorporate considerations of job design, working conditions and health and safety into policies that promote eWorking. The study provides much evidence that these issues play an important role in influencing the success and sustainability of eWorking arrangements. 3. Governments should continue to promote family friendly policies as a means of retaining women in the labour market, to improve care arrangements for elderly and people with disabilities and to minimise the negative impacts on workers and families

Though many governments already promote these policies, there is a special need to focus on the needs of eWorkers in this regard, especially for those working in more precarious work situations.

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4. Family friendly policy actions should aim to ailon people to choose from a broad range of childcare and supporting services, taking into account the different needs o f emerging eWork types. Our study also shows that childcare is for many two parent families a highly gender-related issue which needs to be addressed properly to facilitate the continuity and reentry of women into the workforce and prevent the further withdrawal of women with family responsibilities from the workforce. It is equally important to recognise that parents, including fathers, may wish to provide some part ofthe care for their children themselves and to generally participate in their children’s lives as much as possible.

5. Health and safety agencies and the social partners should actively monitor the working conditions of eWorkers. The study results strongly suggest that, in certain situations at least the working conditions of eWorkers may be quite poor in terms of working hours, shift systems, and psychosocial stresses. Though it is more difficult to monitor and implement appropriate measures to prevent the potential ill effects of new ways of working, there is a danger that eWorking will create a new class of worker who is relatively untouched by the health and safety provisions to which they are entitled. 6.3.3

Actions supporting RTD and Infornnition Socicry Politics

FAMILIES investigated the role of IST for work, for working at home and for meeting family’s needs while working, looking at infiastructures, equipment, security systems, applications and services used. Overall, though work-family balance in the eWork era is more a social than a technological issue, there are nevertheless some important technological needs and expectations raised in the study. The results of the study indicate that there are not any major gaps in available technologies for work, though some problems may arise as far as networking is concerned. The main problems concern the current availability of bandwidth and of tools supporting collaborative work. Some people faced restrictions in relation to access to the bandwidth that they needed. An analysis of the infiastructures available in the EU shows that there are significant gaps to be filled in geographical areas where not even ISDN, not to mention ADSL, are available. In relation to fitwe developments, there are high but rather vague expectations for mobile Internet services. 1. Governments should accelerate the development of broadband networks especially in Less Favoured Regions and peripheral areas.

Availability of higher bandwidth networks is essential for the development of eWork, which in some areas may represent a key opportunity for employment. 2. Advanced telecom services and broadband access for eWork should be afirdable: this could be achieved by providing tax breaks to eWorkea, or by promoting lower tariffs through universal service and telecom markets regulation policies. This is especially important in the context of self-employed eWorkers. where there were reports of access and pricing being a barrier to eWorking.

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3. Support services should be made more efficient by introducing online services. FAMILIES results show that eWorkers with care responsibilities complain about the time lost and the barriers encountered when dealing with organisations providing support services. The bureaucracy load is especially heavy in Italy, but is present everywhere. Specific attention should be paid to the provision of information on the type of services available and the support people are entitled to. 4. Information Society policies should encourage social acceptance and recognition of atypical forms of work, by promoting awareness of the validity of new ways of working. The study results indicated that eWorkers (especially homeworkers) often feel that their working methods are not well understood and their job status is uncertain in the eyes of relatives and friends because it differs from normal office, nine-to-five work patterns.

5. Information Society policies should incorporate the issue of balance between work and family life. There was evidence from the study that some forms of eWork c&n significantly improve family life but some arrangements can be less than optimal for many eWorkers and their families. Though current policy addresses this issue to some extent, there is a need to ensure that balance issues are fully reflected in the work-related elements of IS policies.

6.4 Employers A growing proportion of the workforce is heavily involved in family responsibilities in addition to their jobs. High levels of female labour market participation, the increase in the proportion of couples where both parents are in paid employment and single parent families are relevant long-term trends of the EU population. In addition, in the next decade an increasing number of people will have eldercare as well as childcare responsibilities. Unless employers take into account the demands for reconciliation and balance they may suffer losses in efficiency and be unable to secure the qualified and committed workforce they need. Employers across Europe are being challenged to operate with new levels of transparency and dialogue to secure the goodwill they need to operate. Initiatives to secure this goodwill of employees could be developed as part of employers’ responses to corporate social responsibility through negotiation and co-operation with relevant stakeholders. The introduction of eWork can benefit both employers and employees. Our study clearly identified sub-types within the sample (such as ‘continuers’, people with a heavy caring responsibility who need flexibility to remain in the labour market, and ‘re-entrants’, who reenter the labour market after care-related absences) where eWork allows the retention and recovery of skilled personnel. A number of authors suggest that family-friendly arrangements are ofien justified by direct economic and financial considerations including, amongst others, lower staff turnover, better recruitment possibilities, a greater range of diversity, interests and experience amongst staff. Of course, the issue of the costs-benefits balance of family-fiiendly arrangements is very

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complex, difficult to quantifL and varies widely between business organisations and different jobs. However, employers do not seem to be fully aware of the cost-benefits balance of worker-centred flexibility. 6.4. I

Actions supporting reconciliation

1. Employers should take into consideration family-friendly amngements and the

impact on workers' family life when introducing eWork arrangements. The challenge here is to ensure that changes in the work organisation are planned and organised so that both employers' and eWorkers' needs are met. The risk. for which our study gives evidence, is that flexibility is sometimes implemented without accommodating family needs. More understanding of, and attention to, work-family balance requirements should be given in the design and implementation of shift schedules; in the flexibility and choice given to shift workers; in the on-call arrangements and distribution of on-call responsibilities between an adequate number of workers. 2. Employers should evaluate more carefully the cost-benefits balance of introducing

eWork and worker-centred flexibility, possibly through experimentation, in order to take advantage of the opportunities of organisational innovation. This understanding would lead to more widespread d i f h i o n of eWork typologies. better quality work conditions and satisfaction of work-fmily reconciliation needs. 3. When introducing eWork, employers should address the need to change managers' attitudes as well as methods, and focus on training middle management to adapt to new modes of interaction with eWorkers.

The study reported cases of penalisation of career prospects and strained relationships with managers who perceived the introduction of eWork as a loss of power and status. In general, there is evidence of resistance by managers and of difficulties in dealing with workers who are working away from the workplace. 4. Business organisations should engage more in networking for sharing information and expertise related to implementation and best practices of eWork.

The goal of promoting reconciiiation between business and workers' needs when introducing innovation is important but difficult to achieve. Sharing experiences and learning fromothers as well as looking for more information from existing sources can help promote best practice. 5. Business organisations should provide eWorkers with full information on the

implications of new eWorking amngements, including the health, safety and psychological implications. Awareness of the possible impacts of eWorking is still low. Employers should improve their knowledge in this area, and provide it to prospective eworkers.

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6. Employers should implement organisational procedures that allow eWorkers

working at home or remotely for most of their time to maintain good relationships with the workplace environments There is a need for action to support home-based eWork arrangements. There is a need to foster participation in the organisation, a feeling of belonging and sharing ofthe organisation's values, as well as avoiding the risk of marginalisation and negative impacts for career development. This is particularly relevant for young or newly employed people, who should have the chance to learn the culture and methods of the organisation. This could be helped by the widespread ditfision of tools supporting collaborative work 7. Family friendly policies to support eWorking should accommodate the needs of both partners. In situations where both partners worked, there was evidence that only through the application of family friendly policies for both partners (sometimes by different employers) could reconciliation and balance be achieved. This was most notable where there were heavy child or elder care demands on the family.

8. Employers should implement appropriate Human Resource Management (HRM) policies for eWorkers that allow for return to traditional work arrangements and which enable appropriate exit strategies from eWorking. Some cases provide evidence that eWorkers have difficulties in returning to traditional work arrangements. Appropriate exit strategies from eWorking are needed and should be incorporated into HRM policy. 6.4.2

Actions supporting quality of work

A striking finding from the study common across the four countries is that better preparation for the demands of eWork and for managing family implications of eWorking is needed. eWorkers need technical and self-management skills, while their families need to be prepared for the changes associated with the new arrangement. Our cases show the importance of a disciplined approach to eWork, especially where working at home is involved and whenever organisational changes are necessary. There is a risk of failure in the initial phase when eWorkers must establish self-management principles and their coping strategy for dealing with family demands. Training and technical support are fundamental to overcoming the initial difficulties and for learning how to use flexibility. Training is also vital to safeguard the eworker's career and to promote re-entry to the workforce for those who take breaks from work for personal or family reasons. Employers should consider more carefully the long-term benefits associated with the provision of this kind of support. 1. Supports aimed at training, mentoring and advising people adopting eWork arrangements should be developed.

The main areas to be addressed are: the technical competencies needed for working on one's own;

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training to improve self-management and self-organisation capabilities when entering eWork; skill refresher courses and retraining for people reentering the labour market after breaks.

2. Employers should provide adequate ICT equipment and ensure speed and quality of connection for home-bised and mobile eWork: higher bandwidth and better quality and speed of mobile connection. Several cases were reported where the lack of technology seriously affects the eWorker's performance as it limits the possibility to function efficiently. In some cases, the speed of access to the company was too slow. and in others, connections were not reliable enough.

3. Employers should provide specific tools to support conferencing and other forms of collaborative working Another important issue arising from the results is the need for tools that support interaction between the eWorker and the employing organisation. These would be beneficial both for limiting the number of meetings in the case of mobile workers and for reducing the isolation of those working at home. 4. Employers should integrate job design and health and safety considerations into eWorking arrangements for their employees. Whereas the results from the study suggest that many ofthe worst practices in this regard are to be found among the self-employed, there is also evidence that working conditions and job design are less than optimal even where the eWorker is directly employed. Even though many eWorkers viewed the demands of their work situation as being temporary and beneficial in the short term. this approval is not a sufficient basis for creating unsustainable working conditions.

5. Employers should actively monitor the impacts of eworking arrangements for their employees. It is clear from the results that eWorking can sometimes result in less than optimal working conditions for the employee. Moreover, the results imply that eWorking arrangements which may suit at one time may not be suitable at all times. In addition, from the employer's perspective, the demands of work practices may change. All of these factors imply the need for active monitoring of the working conditions and satisfaction of the eWorker. 6. Employers should ensure that adequate ongoing training programmes and career development programmes are made available to eWorkers.

eWorkers who were directly employed often reported perceptions of being left on the margins of the employing organisation especially with regard to issues such as training and career development. It is essential that these issues be adequately catered for by employers fiom the perspectives of fairness and practicality. as many eWorkers view eWorking as only a temporary stage in their career.

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6.5 Trade unions The role oftrade unions in defining agreements supporting the take-up ofeWork and related organisational innovations is largely recognised and their involvement is recommended by EU directives. However, trade unions may be conservative and mistrusting of new flexible ways of working. Proper recognition and active support of eWorkers is needed for developing and implementing family-friendly working arrangements, particularly those allowing people to exert control over their working lives. Clearly, the trade unions role is crucial to ensure that flexibility instruments are not implemented at the expense of security and other rights to which workers are entitled. This leads to the following recommendations. 1. Trade Unions should participate in the introduction of flexible eWork arrangements,

actively promoting measures to prevent discrimination or loss of protection and workers' rights, and to promote worker-centred flexibility needs. More specifically, they should: monitor the emergence of mechanisms of economic exploitation which may be associated with certain forms of eWork; promote performance evaluation methods which recognise and compensate the productivity increases of eWorkers; guarantee the reversibility of the arrangements for those eWorkers wishing to return to traditional arrangements after particular stages of the family cycle; ensure that whenever family-friendly arrangements are used by women for family reasons, this does not lead to gender discrimination. 2. Trade Unions should increase efforts to promote education and training measures addressing new skills needs. They should lead in promoting employability among eWorkers, and goals such as life-long learning and the development of self-marketing capabilities.

Our study shows the key role of training for the successfd implementation and management of eWork. FAMILIES also shows that eWork offers significant opportunities for =-entering the labour market after career breaks, or for changing ways of working for other reasons. 2. Trade Unions should support studies to explore issues such as gaps in skills and on

the implications of eWork, e.g. in relation to health and safety. They should raise awareness of eWork and its overall implications, including the attitudes, needs and expectations of eWorkers. Trade Unions should join forces with other social partners (including such groups as citizens and representative associations) to disseminate iniormation on eWork and its implications, to design information campaigns, and to address policy makers, business organisations and the wider public. 4. Trade Unions should ensure that current and potential eWorkers receive support,

advice, assistance and training. These services should be aimed at employees, the self-employed, and the unemployed seeking to re-enter the labour market through eWork.

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6.6 Citizens and Families organisations Citizens and Families organisations can play an important role in promoting actions aiming to improve work-family reconciliation. These stakeholders have combined interests in the two areas, therefore they can make a contribution towards the convergence of policies which have been traditionally separate. Organisations active in this field include: family networks and organisations, e.g. support groups for families with special needs; professional networks, e.g. associations of teleworkers. which aim to share experiences. exchange information, promote co-operation; organisations active in the field of work-family reconciliation, equal opportunities, social inclusion e.g. Equality Authorities. National and European Observatories on family matters, research institutions etc. Some of these organisations have limited resources, while others, especially those active at EU level, are important players in the field of reconciliation. They can exert influence on policy makers, business organisations and social partners in order to raise awareness and promote the difbion of e Work forms suitable for work-family reconciliation. Within this context. FAMILIES leads to the following recommendations. 1. Organisations should focus lobbying efforts on promoting family-friendly policy on: 0

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adaptation of employment policies sensitive to the difyerent types of eWork promoting worker-centred flexibility implementation measures which improve employability and quality of working life; education and training meeting the new skills requirements posed by eWork

2. Organisations should promote networking, encourage dialogue and sharing of information and experiences between interested parties at local, national and EU level, aiming to achieve a better understanding of eWork and its impacts. The EU perspective is needed because EU directives influence national policies to an evergreater extent. Sharing of experiences and practices from a broader perspective also helps in guiding actions. However, national differences in regulatory fiameworks, enabling infrastructures and operational experiences are such that it is important to be active at local level. The comparison of experiences across European countries should aim to identi@ and fill gaps in the regulatory. technological and cultural M e w o r k necessary for the implementation of eWork. 3. Organisations should gather and disseminate information on the short and long-term effects of eWork on the quality of working life, career, and family life. They should also be active in legitimising eWork. A change in culture is needed to make nonstandard work arrangements more socially accepted.

FAMILIES showed that eWork arrangements can lead to balanced work-family reconciliation under certain circumstances. It also demonstrated. however. that these new forms of work bring practical changes in time and place of work and are associated with important

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psycliosocial effects (such as job satisfaction, work stress) and long-term impacts concerning career development and job security, for example. It is important that people adopting such arrangements are aware of the impacts and prepared for the changes that it will bring. The main targets of awareness actions should be:

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actual and potential eWorkers policy and decision-makers business organisations interested in implementing eWork the social partners the population at large

4. Organisations should lobby policy makers: 0 to accelerate the diffusion of the IS infrastructures and technologies necessary to allow the adoption of eWork and worker-centred flexible ways of working: and to increase the universal availability of and equal access to ICT equipment and infrastructures necessary for eWork. The study showed that the lack of broadband infrastructures can act as a significant barrier to eWork in a number ofregions. 5. Organisations should participate in the development of user-friendly products and . services for eWork, taking into account the needs of work-family balance. Organisations could undertake actions to deliver information on the needs and expectations of users for specific applications and tools which may help in work-family balance. 6. Organisations should lobby policy makers to create conditions for the affordability of the ICT equipment and services necessary for eWork, such as tax breaks for employers or special tariffs for eWorkers.

The study demonstrates that the investment needed to buy, maintain or upgrade equipment and services can be burdensome for self-employed eWorkers, especially in the initial phase. Since eWork enables people to continue to work during particular stages of family life, or to return to work after care-related breaks, it is important to ensure that appropriate supports are available.

6.7 RTD prioritiesfor Europe's 6hFramework Programme This section presents recommendations on priorities for further research to be pursued under Europe's 6th Framework Programme for Research and Technological Development. The project has also proposed a set of statistical indicators that, if applied on a large scale, could monitor the development of eWork and its interactions with family life. The following results of our analysis provide the basis for the priorities to be pursued by the 6th Framework Programme, as far as eWork and work-family reconciliation are concerned:

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the need for more detailed knowledge of eWork and its implications for families the need to include families as a focus for investigation

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the need for more reliable and affordable technologies and applications supporting tele-cooperation in work the need for a multidimensional approach to investigations in the area expectations of and demand for services and systems to support working and caring, such as video monitoring. smart homes. alarm and alerting systems. online shopping and care management.

The following priorities for research and technology development in the VI Framework Programme are proposed. 1. Socio-eeonomic research on eWork should continue to receive high priority, with a specific focus on the newest and less known typologies,such as mobile work. The study found that there is a lack of information at macro level, especially concerning quantitative aspects of new ways of working. More research should be carried out to measure the d i f i i o n and impacts of emerging eWork typologies as well as to comprehensively understand eWorkers' needs for work-family reconciliation. Socio-economic and technological research should be combined in a multidisciplinary approach to identify the organisational and technological solutions that best suit eWorkers' needs and expectations

2. Action lines and projects aimed at developing tools and applications supporting cooperative work and knowledge management tools should be supported. Our study showed that there is a demand for more reliable and at'fordable tools to support conferencing and other forms of interaction and collaborative work. Further effort should be made to develop tools enabling knowledge sharing within and across organisations. In a situation of increased mobility these tools are expected to find a massive demand in the near hture. These tools should include a wide variety of user-friendly solutions, able to meet highly diversified needs. The development of such tools should be carried out taking into account issues related to interoperability, scalability, user-fiiendly design and multi-linguality.

3. Action lines and projects aimed at tools and applications supporting work-family reconciliation should be supported. This includes services and systems to support working and caring, such as video monitoring, smart homes, alann and alerting systems, online shopping and care management. Our study found that the attitude towards these tools is ambivalent. People are more inclined to consider their usage to care for adult dependants, rather than for children. There is great interest in on-line services for home management. More effort should be put into the development of fully accessible tools. It is necessary that leading-edge technologies be fully exploited for developing solutions for the home environment and monitoring devices able to improve security and safety. 4. Action lines and projects to develop tools for life-long learning and distance learning, specifically addressing eWork training needs, should be supported.

There was evidence fiom the study that many eWorkers found themselves in relatively marginalised positions with regard to ongoing education and training, especially in the case of freelance or self employed work. New tools and methods need to be developed to meet the needs of this group. Further research needs to be undertaken in order to ensure quality and

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efficiency. Issues to be addressed include accessibility for all, user-friendliness, learning guidance and security.

5. Initiatives aimed at raising awareness and disseminating the results in this field should continue to receive high priority. A result of our study is that people find it difxcult to access the information available on eWork and related opportunities. If we consider the characteristics of the sample of FAMILIES in terms of education, job and status we can conclude that significant dissemination efforts need to be undertaken with the wider public.

6. Further research into working conditions, health and safety implications, quality of work and job design and work organisation issues surrounding eWorking is needed. Research also needs to be undertaken into improved delivery systems for information and services related to these issues for eWorkers. The findings fiom the study suggest that not enough is known about these issues in relation to eWork and that delivery systems for workplace health and welfare services do not always appear to influence the practices of eWorking. 7. Research should focus on examining the full range of factors influencing eWork and its outcomes in a longitudinal fashion.

Current research into eWorking has tended to take a relatively narrow view of this emerging phenomenon. Moreover, most studies tend to be cross-sectional in design. The FAMILIES results suggest that the factors that influence eWorking and its impacts are complex and that in relation to its more potentially negative aspects at least, little is known of the full effects on workers and their families. A longitudinal approach to these issues seems to be indicated.

8. RTD policy should continue to support the development and dissemination of new instruments to support better reconciliation and balance in eWorking practices. Currently, there appears to be few instruments that promote good practice in relation to eWorking, both in the case of employers and the self-employed. Specifically, new instruments which are eWorker-led and which focus not only on the worker but also on the family members of the worker are needed.

6.8 Proposal for new e Working Statistical Indicators As far as socio-economic research is concerned, FAMILIES made efforts to develop a set of possible indicators which, if applied and measured on a large scale, could monitor the development of eWork and of the main drivers which impact the family context. In effect, these indicators could be used to assess the spread of eWork and, importantly, to provide information on how eWorking interacts with (supports, hinders) family functioning. By its nature, the project could not produce quantitative indicators, but it could make a contribution in terms of indicating what could be measured in both quantitative and qualitative terms and how they could be measured. It was clear from the case studies that many of the main influences of eWorking on family reconciliation and balance did not emanate from eWorking per se, but from more traditional

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Chapter 6. implicationsfor Policy and Recommendations

aspects of working life; for example, the type of shift systems which many of the sample worked, the kinds of work that they did and the conditions of their work. Nonetheless, they played an important role in determining how well eWorking arrangements worked out for the worker and the family. They should therefore be taken into account in any future research exercise if a full understanding is to be achieved of the impacts ofeworking. The box below lists some of the key issues arising h m the FAMILIES project which are important if socio-economic research is to evolve to address in a deeper way some of the important wider policy issues that are associated with work-family reconciliation and balance. Assessing eWorkiag sad work-family reconciliationhalance What are the key emerging forms of eWorking that have a bearing on workfamily reconciliation and balance? How extensive are they and what are the trends? How is the take-up of these key forms of eWorking influenced by family circumstances? Why are workers and their families adopting these different forms of eWorking and what impacts are the different forms having on work-family reconciliation and balance? Do preferences for these various forms of eWorking vary across family circumstances? What factors encourage or discourage take-up and/or preferences for various forms of eWorking across different family circumstances? How is the technological environment evolving in relation to all of this? What are the requirements, gaps and opportunities? What are the impacts of eWorking on other indicators of family functioning, e.g. time usage, income, health and wellbeing, quality of life ? What kinds of work and under what conditions is work undertaken via eWorking arraneements? "

6.8.1

Quantitative indicators

The main proposal from FAMILIES is that the quantitative assessment of eWork developments could reinforce and expand the attention given to work-family reconciliation and balance issues. In addition, the case studies suggested that there are other issues that ought to be addressed if a hller picture of the impact of eWorking on family functioning is to emerge. The table overleaf provides an outline of some of the issues that should be considered.

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Indicator areas 0 Generic variants (atypical times andor places) 0 Concrete forms (working from home, shifts, mobile, on-call, neighbourhood work centre, etc.) Take-up by family types 0 Couples with children 0 Couples without children 0 Single parents 0 Carers (for elderly or disabled people) Reasons for adoption and work- 0 Reasons for adoption of eWorking family impacts 0 Implications for labour force participation (for eWorker partner) 0 Implications for quality of work 0 Implications for gender equality 0 Costs and benefits for the various family stakeholders Preferences 0 What forms are: 0 Acceptable/preferred for long-term 0 Acceptable/preferred for particular stage of family-lifecycle Not acceptable/preferred Facilitating or constraining factors 0 Attitudes (individual and normative) 0 Skills (technical, self-management, entrepreneurial) 0 Practical resources (e.g. housing, technology, extended family) 0 Structural factors (e.g. childcare and eldercare services) 0 Social Dartner factors (attitudes, umvisions, agreements etc.) Technological gaps and 0 High-bandwidth connectivity (to the home and mobile) opportunities 0 eWork solutions (home and mobile) 0 Home systems and networks 0 Technology at the work-family interface 0 Type of work Job content 0 Contractual conditions 0 Working hours (formal and informal) 0 Shiftworking (description of shift system) 0 Job demands Autonomy Job stress 0 Training (opportunities and training received) Career development opportunities 0 Commuting Job related outcomes 0 Job satisfaction 0 Health and wellbeing Timeoff 0 Fatigue 0 Social interaction between family members Family related outcomes 0 Socially useful time off Quality of caring 0 Family member satisfaction 0 Quality of life

Topic Emerging forms of eWorking

The proposed approach would help ensure that the measurement process keeps pace with the increasing importance being given to work-family issues in employment and social policy. In doing so, consideration should be given to developing a more differentiated approach and one that includes deeper attention to the quality dimension. A more differentiated approach would mean looking in more detail at:

.

the variety of emerging forms of eWorking, incorporating the variety of the newly emerging configurations of eWork

Chapter 6. lmplicationsfor Policy and Recommendations

I20

m

9

m

.

the various family contexts within which they are adopted. This would help to align benchmarking with the increasing importance being given to diversity of family circumstances (in particular in relation to childcare and eldercare needs) reasons for adoption and impact on work family balance: this is a complex issue, and a determinant for assessing the overall outcome of eWork arrangements. It is important to monitor how different motivations by gender, by family type and by status influence the outcome of work-family balance as well as permanence in the labour market a large-scale analysis of eWorkers in particular family situations could bring some light to the issue of whether eWork effectively supports labour market participation, quality of work and gender equality a sophisticated analysis on’an extended range of indicators of the impacts of eWorking on the worker and the family

Key groups that need to be addressed in measuring the impacts of eWorking include: 0

0

Continuers: those who wish to continue in the labour market after a change (such as having a child or taking on caring for ah older person) Returnees: those who have taken a break for care-related or other reasons and who wish to return after short absences Re-entrants: those who wish to return after relatively long care-related absences.

Overall, indicators should focus on: m Assessment of preferences and expectations for eWork across family types which could help in setting appropriate policy actions; Assessment of drivers and inhibitors of eWork which could help in setting up appropriate policy actions; Technological aspects, in particular availability and affordability of solutions, are essential in ensuring equal opportunities across the different countries and regions for those wishing to establish eWork arrangements; Characterising the nature of the work, the work conditions and the impacts of the work on eWorkers and their families.

.

6.8.2

Qualitative indicators

Qualitative assessment should also be undertaken at each of the three levels identified above: structural, social partners and individuals and their families. In relation to structural provisions and the role of the social partners, it would be uselid to include systematic collation and presentation of examples of good practice in government and social partner initiatives aiming to ensure that eWorking contributes to better work-family reconciliation and balance. Moreover, it would be useful to establish indicators and guides of good practice in relation to achieving reconciliation and balance. In relation to individuals and their families, it is important to give attention to the goal of putting ’ ... people at the centre of the Union’s policies’ as articulated in the Employment in Europe 2001 report. A good way to do this might be to provide snapshots of how everyday working and fmily living is turning out under different eWorking arrangements (this might even be done on a longitudinal basis). The FAMILIES project has provided a first set of such everyday ‘stories’ and this is an element that could be built into the research activity on an on-going basis to ensure better understanding and empathy with the realities underlying the more abstract aggregate quantitative indicators.

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BIBLIOGRAPHY Bettio, F., Del Bono, E., & Smith, M. (1998) Working Time Patterns in the European Union: Policies and Innovations fiom a Gender Perspective - Report of the European Commission's Group of Experts on "Gender and Employment". Bevan, S., Dench, S., Tamkin, P., Cummings, J. (1999) Family-friendly employment: the business case, Institute of Employment Studies, published by the UK Department for Education and Employment. Bielenski, H., Hartmann, J. (2000) Employment Options of the Future, Dublin: European Foundation of Living and Working Conditions. Di Martino, V. (2001) The high road to teleworking, Geneva: The International Labour Organisation. Duxbury, L., Higgins, C., and Lee, C. (1994) "Impact of life-cycle stage and gender on the ability to balance work and family responsibilities", Family Relations, 43, 144-150. e-Living Consortium, ed. Ben Anderson. (2001) e-Living: State of the Art Review. Life in digital Europe, EU Fifth Framework Project IST-2000-25409. Empirica (EcaTT) (1999): Benchmarking Progress on new Ways of Working and New forms of Business Across Europe. EcaTT Final Report. August 2000 see http://www.ecatt.com/ecatt/fieport/contentfieport. html EU: DG - Employment & Social Affairs (1998) Gender use of Time - Three European Studies, Employment and Social Affairs - Equality and Social Affairs. Luxembourg: Office for Official Publications of the European Communities. European Centre for Social Welfare Policy and Research. (2000): Expertise and background document on Reconciling Family and Working Life. Gareis, K. & Kordey, N. (2000) The Spread of Telework in 2005, paper presented at the eBusiness and e-work Conference, Madrid, 18-20 October 2000. Gareis, K. Korte, W.B. (1999) Benchmarking Progress on Telework and other New Ways of Working in Europe, Proceedings of the Fourth International Telework Workshop, Tokyo August 31-September 3, 1999,346-356. Giddens, A. (1999) Runaway world - how globalisation is shaping our lives, Profile Books, London. Based on the BBC's 1999 Reith Lectures (chapter on Family). Gunnarsson, E. "Gendered Faces? Teleworking fiom a Swedish Perspective", In Virtually Free? - Gender, Work and Spatial Choice. (1997) Stockholm: NUTEK Swedish National Boaard for Industrial and Technical Development, p57-p77 Haddon, L., Silverstone,R. (1993) Teleworking in the 1990s: a view fiom the home, SPRU CICT Report No. 10, CICT, SPRU, University of Sussex, UK.

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Harvard Business Review (2000), Work and life balance. Harvard Business School Press. Boston. USA. Huws, U. "Different spheres, different places", In Virtually Free? - Gender. Work and Spatial Choice. (1997) Stockholm: NUTEK Swedish National Board for Industrial anc Technical Development, p57-p77 Huws, U., Podro, S., Gunnarsson, E., Weijers, T., Arvanitaki. K.. Trova. V. (1996 Teleworking and gender, Institute of Employment Studies. Joseph Rowntree Foundation ( 1999), Report Living at work, September 1999. Joseph Rowntree Foundation (2000), Report Whose Flexibility? September 2000. Mahoney, C., Atterbury, S. (2000) Shared Experience Flexible Working, Vol. 5 , No. 4, March 2000.

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"CRANETs job sharing survey.',

Malone. T.W., Lautenbacher, R.J. (1998): "The Dawn of the e-lance Economy". In : Harvard Business Review. Roberts, Leslie P., (1999), Under one roof: towards a reconciliation of home-based work typologies, Faculty of Management, University of Calgary, Canada. Available on http://strategies.ic.gc.ca/SSG/mi)3820e.html Salmi, M. "Home-Based Work, Gender and Everyday Life", In Virtually Free? - Gender, Work and Spatial Choice. (1997) Stockholm: NUTEK Swedish National Boaard for Industrial and Technical Development, p l 3 1-p 1 50 Sennett, R. (1998) The corrosion of character - the personal consequences of working in late capitalism, London: W.W. Norton & Company. Sullivan C. (2000a) Space and the intersection of work and family in homeworking households. Community, Work and Family, Vo1.3, No. 2. Sullivan C., Lewis, S. (2001) "Home-based telework, gender and the synchronisation of work and family: perspectives of teleworkers and their co-residents". Gender, Work and Organisation. The National Work-Life Forum (2000), Work-life strategies for the 2 1st Century, available from the UK Industrial Society, London. see http://www.worklifeforum.com Work-life Research Centre, an Independent European Centre of Excellence, based at the University of London, UK. See http://www.ioe.ac.uk/tcru/crfle.htm

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Appendix 1

Case Studies (The case study numbers below (1-96) correspond to the case study numbers in Table 1 of Chapter 4, page 58) 1. eWorking gives quality time to divorced father and his son Marital breakdown caused Brian, who is in his mid twenties, to re-evaluate his working life. Since his divorce one year ago he has become the minor partner in the shared care of his young son, looking after him every Wednesday and on alternate weekends. In many ways it is a familiar story of the male parent in a divorce - the family home exchanged for a small apartment and reduced access to the children. More positively, though, Brian has responded by becoming more child-centred in his outlook and he takes his parenting responsibilities seriously. That means being there and being flexible, a significant challenge for someone in sales and marketing doing 50 hour working weeks with a lot of daily travelling. To meet the challenge Brian changed jobs, finding one where work is judged by results, not by time spent physically present in the office. Now he rarely goes into the office, working from home when he is not on the road. He exploits the flexibility of eWorking from home to ensure quality time for himself and his son when they are together. Brian's working day begins around 7:30, spending the morning on the road meeting clients, and the afternoon back at the home office. Every Friday is spent at home reporting back to head office and planning the schedule for the coming week. On Wednesdays, when he has care of his son, Brian organises the day to make sure he is there at the crkche to pick up and take over from his ex-wife. If he is needed to care for his son on other working days his flexible working pattern allows him some degrees of freedom, and within limits he can vary the working week around his family commitments. At this point in his life he says that if something has to give between work and family, family comes first. No matter how hard one tries to create boundaries between work and home life, though, in a small apartment it can be difficult at times. Sometimes Brian can find himself connected to the office via his employer-provided ISDN line or making appointments on the phone while his son plays at his feet. Still, he finds that this is not a big problem and he can do his job well. Although the arrangement is working well, there are inevitably some downsides. Being away from the office means reduced social interaction with colleagues and the resultsdriven relationship with his employer can put him under increased stress. He has also willingly adopted a work arrangement where he earns less that he could if he gave more priority to his work. For these reasons, when the time is right Brian will probably go back to a more conventional work arrangement and increase the priority he gives to his career. In the meantime any technology that would alleviate the sense of not being present in the office would be welcomed, as would more bandwidth and greater reliability of mobile services for working online when on the road.

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Case Studies

2. Extension of work to the home causes work-family strains When you have been working a sixty-hour week and you need to unwind what do you do? For some the answer seems to be ‘go home and eWork some more’. Johannes, who is in his early 30’s’ fits this profile perfectly. Deadlines, career pressures and the work culture of his organisation conspire to make his work his life. Johannes is a young IT professional and lives with his partner Susanne who is also in her earfy 30’s and is currently completing her studies. His present job rescued him h m a year’s unemployment, with its associated depression and low self-esteem, and now it consumes him. His portable computer goes everywhere with him. with an umbilical link to the office either by mobile phone connection while on the move or by modem h m home. The culture at work encourages the situation, with employees expected to work late and to take work home if they want to get on. There is no extra remuneration for additional hours worked and the company does not pay for equipment or communications costs incurred for home working. Some, perhaps a little unfairly, might even view the company’sspecial arrangement with an Internet supermarket for employees to do online grocery shopping (delivered to the workplace, not the employee’s home) as being something that is provided to minimise interference of work by domestic requirements! Sixty hours a week in the office, working each evening and weekends on his laptop in their small apartment - for Johannes every other aspect of his life gives way to what he describes as ‘his hobby’. Although they share the same physical space, Susanne sometimes feels that a more ac.curate representation of their life together at present would be ‘him sitting next to me with his laptop, me watching television with head-phones looking like a Martian’. Susanne does all the domestic chores, while Johannes comes home late most evenings and work often comes between activities with family and fiiends. Not surprisingly, she says ’what kind of life is this ... when I get a job this has to change’.

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3. Better than unemployment, but not as good as a ‘real’job Lars, who is in his late ~ O ’ S wants , a ‘real’ job. Instead he works part-time from home while his partner Stinna, also in her late ~ O ’ S ,goes out to work and earns the main salary. He works 20 hours a week from home as a telephone-based IT support person and also does the shopping, cleans the home, and cares for their three-year-old when she is not at the nursery. Lars took this work as an alternative to unemployment, not for work-family balance reasons. Consumers buy computers fiom his employer and when they run into difficulties they call a help desk which routes calls to Lars and other contracted freelancers who attempt to resolve them by telephone. The employer provides Lars with an ISDN connection to his home and a personal computer. The two-line ISDN connection means that Lars can be online to a fault database while talking to the customer at the same time. Working schemes are organised every Friday evening when Lars enters an on-line database and puts up in his preferred working shifts for the forthcoming week. If there are ‘holes’ in the scheme, the manager contacts the workers and things are sorted out. When he starts the work he clocks in by entering a homepage on the web and if he needs to clock out for some reason before his shift ends he just informs the company by clocking out ofthe homepage. This is quite easy but, of course, if he clocks out early too often he will be unpopular as it puts extra requirements on his fellow workers. Lars is paid by hours worked and not by the number of answered calls. Thus, working Monday forenoon is quite attractive as there are only a limited number of calls, whereas in the evening it is the opposite. Most problems are pretty basic and Lars finds little job satisfaction in answering them. Also, the job itself offers poor career prospects and there is little or no work-related social interaction. Still, it’s better than being unemployed and it contributes to the family income. When Lars works from home during the day-time, their daughter Marie goes to a day nursery, but when he is off, or working evenings, Lars cares for her himself at home and so the family saves on childcare costs. He also has the flexibility to clock-out if the child is sick or some other family crisis arises that he needs to deal with. Stinna is very happy with the arrangement. 5 h e loves her job, working 37.5 hours per week outside the home and, with Lars at home, she has less to do domestically. For Lars, though, despite the time he gets with his daughter and the opportunity to be involved in local community activities, neither of which would be possible in a traditionally organised job, the current situation is not satisfactory. ‘The one that has the most time does the domestic work - me. I don’t like this distribution of work. I don’t like shopping with the senior citizens in the morning. I would rather have a “real” job.’

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Case Studies

4. Grandchildren benefit from grandad's new job.

When his children were growing up Lasse, now in his mid SO'S, had to spend a lot of time away on business; now that they are grown and gone he works mostly from home. The irony of this situation is not lost on him, and both he and his wife Pia (also mid 50's) wish that it could have been difyerent. They make the best of the new situation though, spending more time with their grandchildren, each other, and in Lasse's case developing hobbies and social interests that he could never have found time for before. When Lasse sold his business he re-invented himself using the skills from his previous life. and now works as a self-employed entrepreneur in the same sector as before. Where once, according to Pia, his children used to see him only at Christmas and on their birthdays, today he spends 80 per cent of his time at home. Pia herself works regular parttime hours out ofthe home. Things are working out well in the new lifestyle where the boundaries between work and home life for Lasse have been more or less eliminated. At home he works hours to suit himself and to fit in with the times that Pia works in her part-time job. He has plenty of space to work fkom home as his children no longer live at home. In small ways he finds himself more integrated into family life, talking to his children on the telephone, playing with his grandchildren, and even indulging in a little housework! Outside of the home he is more involved too, developing his interests and working on social projects for which he never previously had time. For Lasse, computers and technology are something of a necessary evil in his job and his fmily life. The people he does business with tend to mistrust men in suits sporting notebook computers, so when on business trips the notebook computer is kept discreetly in the hotel. Nevertheless, the PC is a necessary tool for Lasse to keep track of his business contacts and suppliers and make financial calculations. He and Pia did experiment with staying in touch via Short Message Services (SMS) when he was away but she found it strange, preferring to speak directly to him. As prices for mobile communication have dropped he now sees his mobile phone as an 'extra arm' enabling him to make contact with suppliers, contacts and more importantly his family when on the road. However. although travel still remains an important aspect of his work and relationships with suppliers must be maintained, Lasse does admit that at this stage he would be happy to work entirely via e-mail if he could. In his case, though, he does not see his computerbased home working job as a career development. 'Careersare for young people - I just wanted to do something meaningful until my retirement.'

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5. More time for family enabled by e-work from home Offer Paul, now in his late ~ O ’ Shis , old job back and he would reject it emphatically; ‘under no circumstances’. As a manager of a small business with long opening hours, his life was inflexible and entirely dominated by work, typically sixty hours a week. Today he runs his own business from home. The working week is shorter, he spends more time with his partner Anne, and most importantly he gets involved with the care of their son Thomas, a young adult who is severely disabled. His life is in balance; his only regret that it did not happen sooner. It is unlikely that Paul would have re-ordered his life if competitive pressures had not forced the closure of the business for which he worked. He turned the set-back into an opportunity by exploiting his skills and knowledge and he has since developed a selfsufficient import and export business. All this he does from home, with around 80 per cent of his work life spent in his home office, equipped with notebook computer, mobile phone, and high speed (ADSL) communications. Technology has facilitated his new work style, but when he considers enhancing his technology usage it is more in the context of his family life. He could envisage benefits in having video links to see his son Thomas at the home where he is cared for, or viewing Thomas’ medical records and care plans over the Internet. Thomas is severely disabled and requires constant care. The family share this responsibility with a specialist centre where he can get the physical and medical care that he needs. Fridays and weekends he spends at home. In his previous work, these were busy days, so Thomas’ care inevitably fell to Anne, who works part-time herself. The family drifted into a paradoxical situation where Paul worked long hours and wished he were at home, while Anne bore the major responsibilities at home and wished she could get out more. Under the new arrangement, Paul now takes his share of responsibility for Thomas’ care at the weekends, while Anne has greater freedom to live a life away from domestic concerns. During the week his flexibility allows for negotiation and sharing of responsibility for family matters. Paul judges his life change to have been entirely beneficial, even if their income has declined. His family life and work-life balance is much better, and he finds that he now works more efficiently because he is mentally more effective.

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Case Studies

6. Baby on the way brings desire for more regular work arrangement

When Susan, in her early ~ O ’ S left , college the complete flexibility offered by call centre working suited her perfectly, even though there was no contract and no security. Now thal she is expecting a baby things have changed and she would like a more regular arrangement. Susan lives with her partner Johan who is still at college. She works in a callcentre staffed by students who work part-time with no fixed hours. Staff negotiate what hours they will work each week, and are paid an hourly rate. There are no contracts of employment; it is entirely flexible, twenty-four hours a day seven days a week. You decide how much, or how little you want to do. The only caveat is that a controller makes sure the centre is properly staffed and monitors the quslrity of the work done. At that time she wanted to work in a youthfiil environment and the job she found exudes youth culture On one level it might seem ideal for a young mother who needs the extra income, and can only work irregular hours, but that is not how either Susan or J o b see it. ‘I need more definite boundaries, to know when to work and when to have leisure time with the family. I will want to spend more time with my baby, especially at weekends when the centre is always looking for people to do shifts. And anyway, part of the success of the centre is the climate, which is dependent on you joining the social activities, the parties and so on. ‘ Johan too does not feel that the irregularity of Susan’s work will suit the family much longer. ‘How can I plan my own work and leisure time, when I never know when Susan is at work? I have no intention of being a stay-at-home father all the time, just because Susan cannot plan her working hours with a longer horizon that a week at a time.‘ The couple’s lives are interdependent but they plan them separately. That too will have to change as the responsibilities of childcare put increasing demands on them. A day nursery for example would not accept not knowing who was coming to pick the baby up and when. Johan adamantly insists it is Susan’s work that must adapt to the new circumstances: ‘Change must come first in Susan’s work. She is not a student anymore, won she will become a mother.’ Without a contract Susan cannot expect any social benefits from her employment at present. She would prefer to get a position on the company’s development team where she would be guaranteed an employment contract and fixed working hours. But she judges that she is unlikely to get this until she has come back to work at the call centre and feels under pressure to return as quickly as possible after the baby is born.

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7. Work family balance is important for single sex couples too Peter and Oliver, a single sex couple both in their mid ~ O ’ S struggle , to schedule time together. Both work shifts and marrying the two work patterns can be problematic. Too often the compromise means one of them working less than he would like to so they can find time together. The couple have tried a number of initiatives, including negotiating working hours on a weekly basis across a mobile phone, but the inevitable compromise has been that the person who can be flexible, Peter, sacrifices working hours for family time. He has cut his hours at the call centre where he works to around 20 each week and schedules them around his partner’s shift patterns. Peter’s company offer very flexible contracts to its call handling staff. The call centre mostly employs students on a part-time basis, paid hourly with working times negotiated from week to week. Scheduling is done online. Each week the employee enters the hours and times they want to work and a human resource scheduler works out a roster for the coming week. Generally employees can decide their own working schedule, although inevitably there is an element of compulsion, as certain periods like Friday and Saturday evenings are unpopular shifts. Oliver’s shift arrangements could not be less flexible. He works a three week rota of 37 hour shifts, plus overtime at weekends and evenings. Moreover he feels that because he is in a single sex relationship with no children, married colleagues with children turn to him first when they need someone to cover a shift due to family requirements. Although he likes to help out, at times he does feel a bit taken advantage of. He strongly asserts his desire and right to be seen as a living in a family with obligations to his partner Peter. Since Peter works more flexible hours the household responsibilities fall to him, but he also gets the benefits of his shorter working life in his personal and social life. He is heavily involved in many social and community activities, something he could not possibly have achieved were he working full time. What concerns him most about his work choice is its instability, not simply in terms of available hours each week, but also longer term. The on-line database that he and his colleagues use to advise callers on their technical problems has matured to the point where a proportion of callers could use it directly to solve their own problems. The pay is poor, the hours are variable, and the job security is non-existent, but Peter tolerates this situation with equanimity for now, because of the flexibility it gives him in managing his personal life.

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Case Studies

8. Work and family life blur together for eWorking mother of two. Lisa. in her late 30's can no longer tell where work ends and family life begins. With no/ E additional childcare support besides the school and public after-school activities. she I manages to drive her career and be available as a parent for her two school-going children. I Although her work life intrudes upon her family and vice versa. for her self-esteem she/ must successfully fulfil both roles: 'I have two leading roles - I'm a mother and a1 I consultant. I cannot do well in one if I am not doing well in the other.' I Lisa's employer, while not overtly promoting family-friendly policies, does promote 1 flexible working in the sense that employees can and do work on its behalf fiom anywhere ' and at any time. Whatever the hours. though, the company does not pay overtime. For some, this flexibility might mean working fiom home one morning. for others it might mean still working fiom home late in the evening and the weekend. As a conscientious person, Lisa's reaction to her employer-s flexibility is to do both and finds herself working every spare moment in the day. At home she works in the kitchen, further blurring the boundaries between family life and work. She would like faster (ADSL) connectivity to the Internet and video conferencing links so she could attend meetings from home. Furthermore, she would like to have a wireless Internet (Bluetooth based) installed in her home as this would enable her to work all over the house. Even though it is sometimes problematic to work in the kitchen where the children are present, she likes to have the possibility to work wherever she wants and have better integration between work and family life. Partner Klaus tends to work the same long hours, approximately 50 hours a week, but makes a distinction between his workplace and home. Should he need to work at weekends he chooses to go into the office, or to remove himself fiom the activities of the rest of the family at home. He would also try and work in the evenings when the children are asleep. Both are committed to their careers and their work demands so much fiom them that there is little left for domestic chores. They divide these equally. sharing the 'pain': 'The way we have it organised, I'm bloody tired and so is he!' The couple both feel that Lisa's current work style and workload are not really very suitable for good work-family balance. On the positive side, though, she can take time off at any time during the working day to meet family commitments, such as visiting the dentist. However, Lisa feels obligated to her employer, and sometimes that causes perceived work commitments to get out of control. When your job demands 50 hour weeks. time taken during the working day must be repaid at other times.

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9. On-call adds to the strains of different work cultures

It is Saturday night and the telephone rings, but it is not a social call. Instead someone from the office wants Peter’s help to sort out an IT problem at the company he works for. For him it is a routine matter, for his wife Mette it is a nuisance. She works a traditional 8:OO 16:OO job and her husband’s less conventional hours as an IT professional can cause strains for work-family balance. In this family the old structured world of work meets the new, more flexible order. Peter, in his late ~ O ’ Sworks , in IT development. Throughout the week he might be found in the developer’s office, working with colleagues centrally or out on site; but when he comes home in the evening he switches to an on-call support role. The on-call role is not formal, in the sense that he actually needs to sit home and wait for the calls. The colleagues have his phone number and if he is not at home they can call him on the mobile phone. When taking the call at home he can access the company network on his computer if he needs to find information, but mostly he can give an answer instantly as he is in charge of IT-development. During a new software release the on-call load can be quite onerous, but at other times it might amount to no more than one call per week. His employer supports flexible working, though not formally: if the team gives everything to deliver on time they can, at least in principle, take things easier after the deadline. Mette, also in her late ~ O ’ S doesn’t , see it that way. Her unionised job has a fixed contract of service that defines her hours, her benefits and her rights clearly. From her perspective her husband’s flexibility is tantamount to being exploited. In reality, there are never any slack times when he can take time in lieu for the busy periods, and the on-call work, which ought to be organised according to a rota, receives no payment or recognition whatsoever. Peter is also in a union, but it plays no role in negotiating his terms of service. For Peter it is not a matter of exploitation: he likes his work, his colleagues and the responsibility. No one knows the system better than he does and he achieves status fiom those calls out of hours. It is simply something that has to be done. The conflict between the old order and the new occurs again when planning holidays. Mette’s work has set holidays in the summer, but Peter is expected to take his holidays in the quiet moments of the project life cycle. In general they find that Mette can and does operate quite a long planning horizon, while Peter can only plan short term. This even affects family visits to in-laws. Peter concedes that Mette’s conventional structured life allows him to lead his less structured one. With a young child it is Mette who is responsible for most of the childcare and domestic duties. Peter does help out, but only within the limits imposed by his work. Both partners agree that Peter’s work is going to have to change sooner or later. It’s OK for the career-building stage but not suitable for good work-family balance in the longer-term.

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10. Driven professional steps back to spend time with growing family

Yesterday Mette's daughter asked her to help write an essay, her first. It was a small event, typical in many family households, but for Mette it was significant - simply because she was there for it. Previously a driven, professional woman, Mette, in her mid 40's. took a step back from the pressures of working for a consultancy to be there for her family. 'So what if I never accomplish anythng big - I will not look back in ten years and discover I have been stressed all that time and have missed my children growing up.' Mette is married with two children, one going to school and the other aged two. Today she works as an independent consultant, setting her own hours around her family commitments. Typically that means a 30-hour week, spent either on clients' premises, at home or on the move. She has the autonomy and the flexibility to plan her work life in a way that allows her to spend more time with her family. For a woman constantly on the go technology plays an important role in saving her time. Her briefcase bristles with laptop, mobile phone, and personal digital assistant (PDA), while her home office sports a digital camera and video link. On the domestic front she muses that an intelligent fridge with Internet link to the supermarket might help her win back another few minutes in the day! Despite the 'down-shifting' she has found that her income has actually increased, and the project work on which she depends continues to flow in. Her husband Peter works in a demanding but flexible job, some of which he can do from home. Nevertheless it is Mette who is the principle c a m as she has made the flexibility to respond to family needs. Although the new arrangement is working very well, there are inevitably some downsides. Sometimes Mette worries that the arrangement may be to the detriment of her professional career, as she knows that at some time in the future she would like to kick start her professional ambitions and goals once again. She also misses the stimulus of colleagues, and the sense of being part of something big. Not content with her dual career and family roles, Mette also manages to involve herself quite a lot in her local community. She feels that working for herself has given her the energy necessary for all this multi-tasking. Her children also benefit. She believes they are happier since she reorganised her working life, and that she knows them better. The couple's lives are also more inter-connected: 'We are closer now ...he is my only "colleague" so he'll have to listen to every aspect of my work!'

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11. Telework helps single dad‘s involvement in fmily and community

Its important for Kurt, in his late ~ O ’ S a, divorced father of three school going children with a demanding and responsible job, to stay in touch with his family. Teleworking from home helps him a lot in this. Kurt’s job comprises quite a mix of elements, so much so that he could almost be classified as a portfolio worker were it not for the fact that he works for a single employer. It includes provision of consultancy and advice (for which he must, in principle, be available whenever needed), teaching and quite a lot of travel. While he loves his job, he loves his family too and has made a number of life decisions in order to keep his work and family life in balance. His first choice was not to move to the city, preferring to continue to live near his fmily. The children live with their mother most of the time, but are free to come to Kurt’ house in the afternoons, something they do a lot. A couple of nights a week, too, they stay at their father’s. Kurt needs to be flexible to accommodate this, and thankhlly his public sector employer has a well-defined flexible work policy. While the job requires him to be away often he is also able to work from home when doing reports, organising events by telephone, answering e-mails and so on. His employer provides the computer and an Internet connection via ISDN. In return for this flexibility he is expected to be, and is, available for advice whenever needed. In his small home his working environment blends seamlessly with the living space. As you walk from the living room to the bedrooms you pass the cramped workspace that constitutes the office. That can mean children are on the Play Station while Kurt advises his employer over the telephone. In general he makes a point of not excusing the background family noises, though sometimes he needs to ask them to keep it down. ‘People who contact me have to accept family noises in the background. That’s the premise, if1 am going to be available all the time.’ Initially Kurt took his job for career reasons and because he wanted to make a usefiil contribution. Now, as he renews his contract, he values the flexibility it has given him. He feels he has become more involved in the community and, perhaps paradoxically given that he divorced, with his fmily.

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12. You should not count on reading your son a bed-time story

After her divorce. thirtysomething Elizabeth examined her life-style and decided that fol the sake of her young school-going son and herself she needed a more flexible employer She started doing job interviews, but says 'with some there was the feeling that I was being told: "don't count on being home every night to read your son his bed-time story".' In the end she opted for employers who were not in fact offering formal family tiiendlq policies. but gave employees almost total autonomy in how they managed their work z long as the job got done. When she started the job, however, she soon found that it was no1 her employers who took time tiom her son, it was her own tendency to extend work intc every crevice in the day. Elizabeth works as a consultant for a research company fiom a local office. One day a week she travels to head oftice, another day she might spend in the field and sometimes she works fiom home. As long as she puts in 37 hours a week and is present for meetings and seminars, she has a remarkable degree of autonomy. Her son lives with her sixty per cent of the time, the rest he spends with his father. With shared care between divorced parents, a constant anxiety that one 'gets it right' complicates an already complicated situation. The fact that both Elizabeth and her ex-husband travel in their work is disruptive of their son's routine. especially when the expected parent cannol be there to pick him up after childcare. Professionally it creates problems too. as she has had to turn down projects that require a lot of travel. 'Yes it is exciting, challenging and stimulating but being on the move all the time is hard both physically and psychologically. The complexity of it all sometimes results in chaos in my life. There just isn't enough time to be a pertect parent, and the perfect professional. I have succeeded in not always being the nice girl at work who does everythmg on time: on the other hand I haven't got the time to drive around with a double-bass twice a week. Some things have to give and that can be stressful.' Still. the flexibility to work fiom home does help. On the weeks when her son is with her she will leave the office earlier to be there to pick him up, transferring calls to her mobile to be able to keep working while on the move. She tries not to work between 16:OO md 20:30 on those weeks, but the laptop, the mobile phone and the Internet connection are :ver present. Once he is sleeping the links to the office are switched on again. Typically ;he works at home several evenings each week and almost every weekend, writing e-mail. reading reports and talking on the phone. There are downsides to this as well. Despite the extra hours she puts in &om home she feels threatened by the workaholics who are still in the office long after family people have gone home. There is also a tendency for important decisions to be made in ad hoc meetings mt of hours. This is a cultural issue that could be changed, but if nothing is done. she would at least like greater Internet bandwidth so she could participate in these meetings From home. Overall, though, the flexibility to work fiom home and manage her work xound her son's times is very helpful in balancing family and career for this hard-working xofessional .

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13. On-call system gives doctor more time for family

For Kevin, a doctor in his forties, his work is his life, his identity. It wouldn’t matter to him ifthe working week were fifty hours or sixty; it is a vocation. So it was pure good fortune when the hospital introduced on-call working practices that created space in his life for his family. Monday to Wednesday Kevin works a conventional 08:OO-16:OO day. On Thursday he does a 12 hour shift 08:OO-21:00, followed by an on-call duty until 08:OO the next day. Friday is a rest day, as is the weekend. The net eRect has been to give him a three- day weekend, even if this can be sometimes disturbed by the on-call element. When on-call he gives advice to colleagues about patient treatment, supported by data sent to him via fax. Thus, the technology used is quite basic, but it is a precondition for being able to work fiom home. He uses the fax machine to receive x-ray pictures and other medical records and then he calls colleagues at the hospital using either PSTN- or mobile. If a situation at the hospital becomes very complicated he must be able to be present within 30 minutes, although this only happens a few times a year. The three-day weekend has made an enormous difference to his life. ‘That I am in my home environment more is a big change for the better,’ he comments. ‘It also improves my fkeedom to indulge in my hobbies and be with my family.’ He and his wife Elisabeth (who has worked part-time regular hours for a long time to suit family needs) have two young adult sons, one still living with them in the family home. Elisabeth appreciates Kevin being around more. Before, he never let his family life interfere with his work, and this reorganisation of the working week has created more time for them to be together. During his night on-call periods, however, it is unpredictable how often he will be called, and it can be irritating for the phone to be ringing through the night. The conflicts are unavoidable but are outweighed by the benefits and they both hope he can continue to work this way.

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14. Free agent with a fixed salary admits he is one of the privileged

It is not so much that Jonas has a progressive employer, it is more that his employers have a ‘progressive’ employee. He might have a salary and a 37-hour per week contract but he works when he feels inspired and rests when he doesn’t. For him it is a case of whatevei Jonas demands the company has to adapt to: lucky for him his company thinks he is worth it! Jonas, in his mid ~ O ’ S works , as a management consultant. doing a wide range of advisory and promotional activities on behalf of his employers. He knows he has a privileged position, a fixed salary with complete autonomy. ‘I get job offers every week, better paid, but with “industrial age” structures. I turn their worldview on its head. I am not the job seeker, they are seeking me so it should be me who is making the demands and my demands are very clear: I want to work in 100 per cent Self-determined surroundings and hlly integrate work and family life. When I tell that to the head-hunters they don’t want to talk anymore.’ What does fiilly integrated work and family mean in practice? Jonas is married to Anne, and they have two young school-going children. They share the household tasks - the one that has the time does the job. Anne works in marketing with work split between home and ofice. Therefore they are often at home working at the same time. Jonas frequently meets with colleagues at home, where they discuss and come up with new concepts and business initiatives. Jonas works on his notebook computer. He personally installed a wireless (Bluetooth) Eomputer network in the house so as not to confine work to one place in the home. This ~onnectsto the Internet via an ADSL line paid for by the company. ‘If work and home are to be integrated,’ says Jonas, ‘I must be able to work while I am sitting with the family in the living room. Also when colleagues come over the ofice is not a very creative space - it IS much better to talk over a cup of coffee in the living morn or a beer on the terrace.’ When working remotely he uses an Internet chat program to know when colleagues are 3n line at the Same time, making communication more spontaneous than via e-mail. The notebook computer comes equipped with a web-cam, and Jonas believes that once broader bandwidth is more cheaply available he will conduct videoconferences regularly. But what he really hungers for is Universal Mobile Telephony Services (UMTS) so he can be Dermanently on-line anywhere. Anne and the two children have their own PCs. all :onnected to the Bluetooth network. Technology pervades the home. But its not the technology itself that interests him, it’s low it can be utilised in the integration of family and work. He does not make a distinction xtween work and after-work, the two overlap and that is how he would have it. He xlieves this has a positive effect on his relationship with Anne and the children. He has a lot of time with them and plans his working day in a manner that he can be with them when .hey are there and work when they aren’t.

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15. Late in life couple balance family and personal space

Olga and Johan are a recently married middle-aged couple. They wanted the experience of family life, but also valued their independence from the years they spent alone, so little by little they evolved a new life-style that gave them the best of both worlds. Having decided to get married, instinctively Olga felt it was also time to changejobs. In a few short months her life had changed utterly. Johan still works outside the home. He prefers the oflice environment, using home for quiet time only for thinking. The office creates the sense of order he needs to do his job well. Olga, on the other hand, changed from being in a strictly regulated office-bound environment to doing a job for an organisation more focused on getting the job done rather than the time served. In both its regulation and its culture her new employer promotes flexibility. Define the goal, and work towards it when you can where you can, but only to the contracted 37 hours. ‘In the company we have strict rules regarding the working week,’ says Olga, ‘you can work from home, or from the office but you cannot do more than the 37 hour week. I think it is great, there are no problems coming and going from the office at any time of the day, because everybody knows that we all work the same. In other organisations it would be culturally impossible to leave at midday, for example. Here it is the norm.’ The company equipped her home office, comprising a desktop PC, ISDN connection, desk and chair. Everything is specified to the highest standard, with the company concerned that the ergonomics they apply to the work space in the office should extend to home working too. ‘Employers should realise that their responsibility for their workers’ wellbeing does not stop when they leave the office, if they expect staff to work fiom home. They need to pay attention to the layout and design of home working space. Trade Unions should be more involved too.’ In practice Olga spends around one fifth of her working time at home. The ISDN line provides inadequate bandwidth for her work and connection is unreliable. Until ADSL is available, and security concerns are resolved she is unlikely to increase that percentage substantially. But the working time she does from home is cherished. ‘I love working from home in the evenings. When I start work I fill the washing machine and the dishwasher, and then I create natural breaks from office work to empty them or put the clothes in the drier. It is important to have breaks while you work; you often forget in the office, but at home it comes naturally.’ ‘The way we run our family life helps me in my work. He works in the office, I work more flexibly, perhaps in the evenings at home. We agreed that one should not interfere with the other’s interests and working arrangements. We have never had a conflict because I want to work and he wants us to be together.’

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16. Teleworking pioneer

When Lynn, in her late ~ O ' S took , responsibility for the IT aspects of her company's new home working policy it seemed natural that she would volunteer as the pioneer. With four young school-going children, her family would give home working its severest test! That proved to be the case, as she struggled to educate them that just because mum was at home did not mean she was available to them. Her partner, John. works in the Same company as Lynn. but his position requires him to work fixed working hours between 10.00 and 15.00. Even though he could work from home, he chooses only to work 5 per cent ofthis time from home. Lynn works in the IT department o f a public sector agency, with responsibility for IT implementation, teaching, development, coding and testing. As part of that role she was given responsibility for the installation of workstations in employees' homes. That means more than simply setting up a personal computer and includes integration into the office Intranet so that electronic documents can be securely accessed from home. In pioneering telework Lynn decided to work two days a week from home. The agency fosters a family tiiendly culture, even buying toys and bedclothes to store in the office for parents who have childcare crises and have to bring their children to work! So it was completely open to the concept of telework; now it was up to Lynn to prove it in practice. Her employer paid for her PC and ISDN connection, which she uses to access the company network. In the beginning, she found it difficult to strike a balance, working many more hours than she was contracted to. Little by little she gained the confidence to know when to stop. and to realise that she could stop work to deal with a family matter. With four children there is a lot going on, between school and extra-curricular activities. She now finds that she freely postpones or interrupts work to deal with a family issue, but gives this time back to work at other times. Conversely it was harder for the children to understand that she was 3t home, but not available to them. Lynn does not see the work family interface as one of conflicts or overlaps. Working from home has created the flexibility for her to integrate the two; being able to test software one moment and put a bandage on a cut knee the next is a positive experience. So much so that even though her responsibilities have changed she has retained the home working component of her contract, and intends working this way into the foreseeable future.

Case Studies

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17. Wednesday morning 4 a.m. Four a.m. on a cold winter’s morning standing at the train station Susan dreams of being back in bed and getting up for work four hours later, like other saner mortals. She travels to the city by train, starts work at 07:30, finishes by 15:lO and travels back to be home by 19:OO. At home she is effectively a lone parent to two young teenagers as her husband currently works abroad on an extended contract. She gets to bed by 22:OO to do it all again next day. Thankfully salvation is at hand! Having completed a year with her current employer she now qualifies for its home working scheme. In a couple of weeks her desk and computer arrive and she will switch to working two days a week from home. She has already identified the spot in the living room which will be the home office, despite there being enough room to dedicate one as an office. ‘When at home I do not want to be isolated from the family.’ Susan’s holds a permanent contract, 37 hours a week, with flexitime. She must be available at the office or at home to be contactable by telephone between the hours of 1O:OO and 15:OO. How she makes up the remaining hours is up to her. The family were well settled in one city when she secured the job in another, so she decided to bear the commute until she qualified for the telework scheme. The hours outlined above she constructed so as to be present for her children at the most crucial period of their day. There is no longer any need for childcare, the children look after themselves, and do most of the housework during the weekdays. This is fluid, when she worked closer to home Susan had responsibility for the home, and during periods when her husband is in the country he does his share. The children have endured their mother’s work mode with equanimity. The fact that she likes her job helps; she comes home having done a good day’s work, and having used the time on the train as personal time for reading and is generally in good spirits. Even though she works and travels most of the day Susan feels she has lots of energy after work compared to her previous job. She even finds time for the gym. Nevertheless she will be happy when the home office gets delivered. Her employer is providing PC, InternedADSL connection, table, desk, lamp, everything to create the office environment at home. Then two mornings a week she will be able to snooze till seven.

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18. Free agent with fixed salary learns to make time for the family

From time to time the head-hunters come calling but Paul (50) is never interested. It would not make him any happier to have ‘general manager’ on his business card, or to earn more money; he has something others envy - time and money. As a senior consultant with an international IT consulting firm Paul acts as an evangelist for its model of business and IT strategy. One day he might write an article for a magazine. h e next speak at a conference or engage with senior business executives to convince them :hat his firm can add value to their business. He works at his own pace tiom home and so long as he continues generating good public relations and attracting new business how and when he does it is his own concern. All the consultants in the firm work from home in the same way, only coming in to the office for meetings. ‘I have the best of both worlds,’ he admits, ‘I am a free agent with a fixed salary.‘ With thirty years business experience behind him Paul has reached the point where he :annot imagine himself working in a conventional manner, with a senior manager telling iim what to do every day. Nor would he like to be entirely out on his own, he enjoys the eam structure and not least the security of knowing there is a salary at the end of the nonth. In his previous job he worked in a more structured way and eventually the pressure ;tarted to affect his health. Paul and his partner Sonja have two school going children. Sonja gave her career up to ook after her children, an arrangement as conventional as her husband’s work style is mconventional. She believes she has been able to build a better relationship with her :hildren and her husband as a result of this choice. It also means the burden of school runs. :xtra-curricular activities, housework and shopping fall on her exclusively. Paul cooks and iiscounts any suggestion that Sonja’s dominant childcare role excludes him. ‘No, I have :ood contact with them too. Unlike many other parents I am there for the important masions in their lives, the soccer matches, the school plays. My work style gives me the lexibility to be there, and I am getting better at using it.’ There is no typical routine but a day spent at home might go like this: breakfast with the :hildren, work until midday, lunch with Sonja, then work until 16:30. Then he would wepare the evening meal. Between 18:OO and 21 :OO is family time, and then he often works lgain up to midnight. Work and family overlap continually, making it difficult to listinguish between when he is ‘on’ or ‘off work. This pervades his social life too, and the ;olf course often proves a rich source of new client business. The notebook computer is his office, and he finds himself working in different places round the home, the living room, in the kitchen and in his private office, which has a 1 vlegabit per second ADSL connection to the Internet. His company both provides the echnology and meets the maintenance costs, and in the very near future will fund a radio ietwork so he can be on-line fiom anywhere in the home. The children have their own PC or games.

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19. ‘May-be people’ because of his work travel In the extended family they are known as the ‘may-be people’. No matter what event is planned, no matter how much notice is given Soren (mid 40’s) and Marlene can never commit. Maybe they will be there, maybe not, and often it ends up Marlene (mid 30’s) going alone. The problem is Soren’s work as a corporate marketing manager; it keeps him constantly on the move. The working week gets defined by what country or city he finds himself in; only one, or if he is lucky two, weeks a month are spent at home. It is not unknown that he has left for work on a Monday and not returned until the Friday of the following week. As the father of two, aged 13 and 8, he recognises he has a problem, ‘I have had a very rough time convincing the management that it is necessary for me to have some time at home with my family. They would prefer me to be on the road even more than I am.’ When he isn’t travelling he prefers to work from home. The rest of the team, affectionately dubbed the ‘travelling club’, often come to his home to swap ideas and create some team focus. Like many travelling professionals the notebook computer and mobile phone are the tools of their trade. When at home Soren plugs into the ADSL line to gain high-speed access to the corporate network, but he plans a wireless network soon to stay mobile even when at home. His employer pays all his technology and maintenance. Marlene works part-time in design, doing the creative side of her job at home and going in to the studio to use the equipment to realise her designs, but Soren’s travel limits her. She has the prime responsibility for the children and for the home. She brings the girls to school in the morning, and in the afternoon they go to a youth club, from where they are picked up in the evening. The club manages the extra-curricular activities on their behalf, and she has a paid help she can call upon when she is stuck. The family are used to Soren’s work mode and do not make demands of him but he feels the stress nonetheless. ‘Sometimes when I have been away for a week and they ask me to go again I refuse. It is mostly a personal need not driven by the family. Marlene doesn’t ask me to stay, nor do the children complain, but personally I feel bad.’ At home he has been known to wash the dishes, and in theory could take time off work for a family emergency but in practice this has never happened. Soren is convinced technology will help him do his job better and keep in contact with the family. He avidly awaits the mobile UMTS networks that will give him high speed Internet access without wires. Once that is in place he expects the team will ‘meet’ regularly via Internet video-conference using Webcams. He would also use the Webcam to talk with the children at home. What he would really prefer though is to travel less, even though he loves his job. ‘The employer thinks that a good pay cheque can solve all problems, but this is not the case. My problem is that I am getting too old for all the travelling and an increase in payment won’t make me feel any better. I guess I have seen all the airports and railway stations that I am supposed to see in my lifetime!’

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20. Simply working closer to home can reap benefits

Sten, who is in his early ~ O ’ S used , to travel an hour to work each morning and an hour back. With a minimum fortyhour week that often meant he was gone before his school going daughter was up. and was home just in time to say goodnight. When his wife Lise. who is in her late 30‘s. became pregnant again he decided to do something about the commute. Sten‘s manager is of the opinion that Sten is a very valuable asset to the company and they are prepared to stretch things to keep him working for the company. Consequently. when Sten explained the problems with commuting to his employer, they decided to offer him the possibility to either work from home or other distance working possibility. However, Sten found the idea of working from home problematic and instead decided to move his work to a local teleworking centre located in his hometown. One day a week he still has to go to the head office, but working at the telecentre (plus some work done at home) has resolved the commuting problem. At the telecentre he has all the IT-equipment he needs -a computer, fast Internet connection and peripherals. The company pays the rent and Sten is fiee to come and go whenever it suits him. It is now a year since their son was born. and the couple have never felt happier. Sten can get more involved in family life and he is ofthe opinion that he has built up a better relationship with his daughter. The domestic chores are more equally distributed. which benefits his wife in particular and finally he has more time for personal hobbies - playing the drums in a local rock band. Now he has time for practice. Lise is currently on maternity leave. ‘Now that he is no longer travelling he has more energy and is participating more,’ she says. ‘He is enjoying his work more and that influences both our family and our relationship positively.’ Sten recognises the many small benefits. ‘I am less tired. less stressed and more mentally present for my family. My daughter knows me better. And I have more time for the other things in my life.’

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2 1. Two on, two off couple find harmony in atypical lifestyle Five years ago Viv and Kim, who are both in their early do’s, held a family conference Work pressures and the stress of caring for their severely disabled teenage son were putting an intolerable strain on the family. At issue was their conflicting work styles: Kim workec shifts involving being away from home two weeks in every four, while Viv had a high11 stressful job in social care. Something had to give. At first glance the solution was for Kim to get a regular job closer to home, but the) quickly saw that that would not resolve the issues. Their son, who lives in residential care came home every weekend, and often Kim would keep him at home all week when he w a off. With regular jobs his visits would have been restricted to weekends only, with all the driving backwards and forwards - 100 km - that entailed. Instead, they decided Viv woulc change her work pattern to be as irregular as Kim’s; it was more important that they were ir sync than they kept a traditional routine. Today Viv works shifts in an ‘open access’ centre for disabled children similar to her son’s - the children live more or less permanently at the centre, with regular breaks home to their families. The shift pattern seems punishing, but on inspection becomes more benign. She works 14 days on and then has 14 days off. During her two weeks on she works 12 hour shifts and is then on-call for the next 12 hours, before resuming her shift again. It sound awful, but in practice there is rarely any on-call duty - she merely has to be accessible via telephone. The 12 hour shift includes well spaced breaks and staff are allowed to sleep during nights, when all the children are also sleeping. The two weeks of’f are entirely free with no on-call responsibility. ‘We have a 14-day-based distance marriage and family life,’ jokes Viv. ‘It works well. 1 used to be tired from work and had no energy, while Kim was totally off-duty and wanting to have fun. Now we have our two weeks off totally together and the conflict has evaporated.’ It is not all fun, however, as they elect to bring their son home from the residential care centre for one and sometime both weeks that they are off-duty. For Viv it can seem that work and home merge into one continual round of care. ‘It is difficult to be a care worker and have a disabled child, but I never get tired of taking care of him, even after 14 days on duty. I have two lives and two families - one at the centre and one at home: I have special feelings for my son and a warm place in my heart for the children at the Centre.’ Since Kim is on the rigs during her 14 day duty and her son is in residential care, Viv often does not go home at all. There are six carers in all - three on-duty at any one time and the Centre provides sleeping facilities for whoever is on-call. ‘When I am on-call there is no reason for me to go home, there is no one there.’ Thus the family only lives in the home two weeks out of every four. The atypical rhythm to their lives has other benefits. The extended two weeks off give them access to low cost holidays at off-peak periods, and allows them to make longer visits to their extended family. On the other hand it does restrict their involvement in more Formalised activities, for example Viv wants to learn a second language but her work pattern makes it impossible for her to attend night classes.

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22. Alternate and after-hours teleworking suits busy executive ‘Doing more, at the right time and in the right place‘ would be a phrase Stefan (in his earl4 40’s) identifies with as he utilises eWorking From home to be more productive in his work and get some better work-family balance as well. Some might see it as work taking ovei too much of life but for Stefan, a company director with responsibilities that he takes veq seriously and two young children, eWorking is seen as a way to work long hours but alw have time for family. Stefan works four days a week in the company’soffice, typically being out of the home from 7.00 am to 18-00p.m., and one day From his home office. He also eWorks from home most evenings and sometimes at weekends, checking e-mails, planning and so on. The company pays for the work-related technology costs. The home has a local area network to connect the various PCs and connection to the Internet via ISDN. The family look forward to soon replacing this with a flat-rate higher bandwidth (ADSL) connection. E-mail and short messaging services (SMS)on their mobiles are used by the family to keep in contacl and organize the day. They have even extended their Internet access so that e-mails can be sent to mobile phones as well as PCs. For his part Stefan looks forward to new applications like video conferencing and collaborative working software tools to enable him to do more of his work through eWorking. The idea of working one day at home was to have less disturbance to his work and so be more productive. This has worked well but depends on having his wife Greta (in her mid ~ O ’ S ) who , stopped working when the children arrived, available to mind the children. Occasionally, Stefan tries to combine working and minding the children but says ‘in such situations one could as well take a day off, it does not work‘. Apart tiom productivity gains, Stefan also finds he is more available for family life on teleworking days. One day a week he can take his son to kindergarten and have lunch with his wife and daughter when she gets back from school. On other days, being able to work hom home later in the evening means that he can be home in time for the family meal. play with the children and put them to bed. Overall, given the good income and the demands of Stefan’sjob that go with this, the whole family seem happy with the work-family balance that they have achieved despite the necessity for after-hours eWorking. In fact, it’s just possible that Stefan’seWorking might x e n help Greta to get back to work in the hture, ‘more than one day teleworking might make a difference,’ she muses.

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23. eWorker’senthusiasm for technology spreads to his family Rolf (in his early 40’s) is a technology enthusiast who works a lot and plays a lot on his computer after-hours. His enthusiasm has spread to his family but there are some downsides from the blurring of boundaries between work and family life. As a senior manager in a large corporation work takes up a lot of Rolf’s time. He changed to his current job and employer to progress his career and, he says, to spend more time with his family. Two years on he actually feels he has less time for the family and would like to adjust his work life once more. Rolf’s working from home is not a formally organised eWork arrangement at present. As a manager, he finds his presence in the ofice is necessary, so he rarely works a full day from home. His regular working day begins at 8:OO and ends at 18:00, with a 30 minute commute each way. At home during the evenings and weekends he prepares himself for the next day, checks e-mails and so on. When he has to go on a business trip he eWorks from home until it is time to leave rather than going into the oEce first. Rolf has a notebook computer and in the family living room there is a PC connected to the Internet via an ISDN link. He often works in the living room, but with two young children he usually does his work when the children are out or in bed, or otherwise occupied. This is helped by the fact that his wife Petra, who is in her late ~ O ’ S is, currently a full-time house-person and they also have an au pair. Apart from this, Rolf‘s hobby is his computer and he spends substantial time ‘playing’ with it and familiarising his family with its use. In consequence there is some blurring of the boundaries between work and family life - it’s often not clear what’s ‘work’ and what’s ‘play’ and a lot of play is Rolf at the computer. One consequence has been that the family as a whole has become quite technologically oriented. The parents use e-mail to help organise things and they share an electronic calendar so that Petra can make sure that business appointments do not clash with family events, and vice versa. Rolf also sees the potential for extending the use of technology into other areas of their lives - for example in dealing with the logistics of childcare and on-line shopping for groceries, both tasks for which Petra currently takes responsibility. For her part Petra sees technology as offering the potential for him to spend more time with her and the children through teleworking, something she ‘hopes will be achieved eventually’.

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24. Freelance eWorking from home provides additional family income

Combining two lines of work and caring for her f m i l y means Kirsten often finds there is just not enough time in the day. With family requirements added to the work juggling that is typical of many portfolio workers, her work-family schedule resembles a railway timetable. Still, the flexibility of her freelance home-based work allows her to provide a much-appreciated boost to the f m i l y income. Kirsten who is in her early 40’s and husband Gerd who is in hls mid 40’s have two young school-going children. Although Gerd is the main income earner and she is primarily responsible for family matters, Kirsten manages to contribute a second income through a portfolio of part-time employment and freelance home-based working. Kirsten opted for this lifestyle as a family imperative; they needed to increase the household income (previously she only had a part-time job) without incurring any childcare overhead. No day is like the next; her part-time job requires her availability on two days per week. one day in the afternoon, the other in the morning and evening. Meanwhile the translation work that she does on a freelance basis fkom home piles up by e-mail. The pace of the translation work varies enormously: one week she might be relatively quiet. the next she is compelled to work into Saturday and Sunday. It is an insecure and erratic arrangement - working from home eliminates the social side of work and working around fmily times can be invasive. On the other hand. she finds the work intellectually rewarding and financially important to the household. From the family’s perspective they feel that life is a lot better than it would be if she had a conventional, full-time job. For the children, their mother is there to bring and collect them fiom school, help with homework and prepare the meals. Gerd takes over in the Evening and puts the children to bed, whereupon Kirsten can find herself turning on the somputer and attacking the in-tray of translation work. She has her own home office upstairs and tries as much as possible not to work when the children are around because it Iffects her concentration on her work. Being a helancer, Kirsten had to purchase the PC, modem, mobile phone and scanner herself and she would certainly appreciate tax breaks for these equipment costs. But more important is suitable and affordable childcare when she considers what would help people iuggling work and family in her type of situation. ‘Most of all we need more flexible zhildcare arrangements with a pay-as-you-use model’.

Case Studies

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25. Home working abandoned Martin’s wife could not put up with him working at home a moment longer. If it was not his clients calling at the door it was the weekend working, or the neighbours insinuating that he must have lost his job. So inevitably two years ago he gave up working from home to retum to the of‘fice environment. To be fair Martin’s job was not suited to the work style. His work involves a lot of difficult interpersonal face-to-face interactions with clients; a situation a world away from the calm unemotional working environment one would normally associate with e-work. He enjoys the work, but it is a job he would like to leave behind him once he goes home. That was not possible when he was working at home. ‘Clients regularly did not respect my privacy. They would show up any time of day even at weekends and expect me to become active on their behalf. It was difficult to refbse. Telework was not the solution, and in the end I doubt whether my partner and I would be together had I continued with it.’ In the past almost seventy per cent of his work was carried out from the ‘office’ conversion in the backyard using a PC and analog modem for email. Regularly he would continue working into the evenings, causing him stress and the family annoyance. They had the sense that he was there, but not really present. The house had to be kept clean at all times to create a sense of semi-officialdom should clients come calling. Now the situation is reversed. Where once they used to see him all day long, now his family only see him late in the evening when he returns from what are 10-12 hour days. Wife Martina concedes that the family gains no benefit from him being away all this time, but it is the lesser of two evils. This despite the fact that the couple (both in their early 40’s) share the care of Martin’s elderly father (in his late 70’s) as well as bringing up two school going children. Martin now tries to keep an absolute separation of work and family, making his care contribution before he starts his work day and at the end, but he finds he has to regularly interrupt his schedule, for example to cope with his father’s medical crises. Generally though he has the flexibility to do this, without resorting to working from home once more. And a good thing too, so far as the rest of the family are concerned!

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26. Flexible shift-working gives flexibility without security

For lone mother Petra, who is in her mid ~ O ’ S shift , working in a call centre gives her the flexibility to work and earn some much-needed extra money whilst also managing he1 fmily responsibilities. The downside is the lack of security and longer term prospects. Apart fiom weekend access arrangements. Petra has complete responsibility foi childcare and home management; fitting a job around these responsibilities inevitably requires compromise. Nevertheless she has managed to achieve it. working an average ol 15 hours per week in a call centre. A typical working week might comprise two morning shifts fiom 8:30 a.m. to 2 p.m. and one evening shift from 3 p.m. to 9 p.m. Once or twice a month, she works at the weekend and occasionally on call. This may occur if the workload requires an above average level of telephone interviewers. She manages to combine her job with caring for her schoolgoing son by working when he is at school or is with his father, and she also relies on his grandmother a lot. This generally works quite well but there are times when her son must be at home alone while his mother finishes a shift, and neither of them is happy with this. The problem could be avoided if the company oflered the option of call handling from home, but there are no signs of this on the horizon at present. Under the circumstances Petra finds her work flexibility enables a workable, if less than ideal, solution to her work-family balance challenges. She does find, though, that the demands of it all wear her down sometimes. Also, the other side to her flexibility is insecurity. Petra works without a contract and has no fixed number of hours. This can work in both ways - the company can reduce available shifts when the work is not there but is also flexible when someone chooses not to work a shift. Apart h m this, her working time is monitored and even small interruptions like visits to the toilet are taken into account. She does not receive social welfare benefits such as health insurance and pension contributions, and is concerned by the high staff turnover around her. Given the compromises it’s not surprising that Petra expresses only qualified enthusiasm for her current work-family situation. She feels that call centre work provides an opportunity for getting back into the workforce and that in the short-term it suits in her demanding family situation. However, she would really prefer a situation with more regulated employment, better childcare services available, and the possibility of working tiom home.

Case Studies

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27. Parenting comes before everything but still some time for work When little Marion was one year old mother Renate decided to go back to work - not to her previous skilled manual job, but to work part time in a call centre. The bustle and social interaction of her previous job was exchanged for a computer and a headset to give her the flexibility to work the way and the times she wanted. For the first two years Renate worked two days a week, evenings only. During the day she was there for her daughter; when husband Walter (like Renate, now in his early 30's) came home he took over while Renate went to work. Walter, who works a regular 37.5 how week, slightly modified his work times so he could start and leave earlier. As Marion got older Renate took on more work and at alternative times, but her working week still averages around 10 hours. Today Marion is six years old, and Renate looks back and cannot imagine how she would have got through those years without the benefit of flexible working times. Family has always come first for her. Her job might be described as low skilled but it's available and meets her current needs. It suits her to be able to forget completely about work when she goes home. Flexibility was and remains the key issue. There are no minimum hours and she can even condense her working week into one day, working backto-back shifts (08:OO-14:OO and 14:OO-21:OO). During nursery school holidays Renate either takes the time off, or alters her schedules to work evening shifts once again. There are downsides too, of course. As a freelancer she has poor social welfare rights, no paid holiday or sick pay, and poor job security. Her employer can and does cancel work on weeks when the order book is slack. And not everyone would regard a back-to-back shift as 2 bonus. Socially too it is a world away from the interactions she had in her previous job; today she talks to colleagues during break times, otherwise it is headset on, facing the zomputer. For Renate the benefits outweigh the negatives. She has the freedom to pursue her career - that of a full-time parent - while still being able to contribute to the household income. It 1s a stress-free job with the freedom to work or not to work at any time. She also finds that she feels less tired and has the freedom to pursue hobbies in the mornings when other Deople are at work.

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Case Studies

28. Flexibility not surrendered even though the children are grown

Sandra, who is her early ~ O ’ S , swapped her regular part-time (mornings only) administrative job for the flexibility of freelance work in a call centre more than eight years ago. At the time, with two school-going boys, and husband Thomas having a demanding job with a lot of unpaid over-time. she needed shorter hours and all the flexibility she could get to care for her family. Today the boys are self-sufficient young men who call on their mother for the infrequent lift to the sports centre or to see friends. Although Thomas (in his mid 40‘s) still works long hours, including quite a lot of supplementary eWorking from home. Sandra with her part-time, flexible hours has some time for herself at last. On average Sandra works 12-15 hours per week at the call centre. A typical working week could be: Mondays 09:OO-14:OO; Tuesdays and Fridays free; Wednesdays and Thursdays 16:OO-21:OO.Occasionally there might be weekend working but the flexibility is mostly one sided: Sandra can work when she wants and is not constrained to any particular shift pattern. She feels the impact in her life-style, using facilities such as the gym at off-peak times. She is also less stressed and finds things are much more relaxed at home for her and her partner. On the domestic front, though, there was one downside to the downshifting from the very beginning. Once Sandra began to be at home more the rest of the family downshifted their contribution to household chores! Overall, however. this is a flexible arrangement that seems to suit everyone in this fmily.

Case Studies

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29. After maternity leave for the first two children, now it’s his turn!

After each of her first two children were born, Beate (in her mid 30’s) took extended maternity leave. Now with their third child it is husband Erhard (in his late 30’s) who ‘brings up baby’ and Beate has gone back to work full-time outside the home. The route to principle carer has been a gradual one for Erhard. Three years ago he exchanged regular, stressful hours with long commutes for a job at a local telework centre. Initially he worked about two-thirds time but gradually he has cut this back, first to half time and now even less. Today he only works as needed, and apart from providing some holiday cover and training, can do a lot of his work by dialling in from home. Because he is a public employee, his new flexibility has not been bought at the expense of security and he will be able to increase his hours again when he is ready for this. Erhard is now largely a parent and house-husband and Beate works a traditional day, leaving home around 08:OO and returning after 18:OO. With the new work arrangements the share of domestic duties has changed, it’s now equally divided whereas before Beate would have done almost all of it. He also organizes the after school timetables for the children, getting them to activities and to friends. Erhard has found the evolution to home working househusband has been a positive experience. When he worked full-time he was regularly stressed to the point of becoming ill. He did not see the children in the morning and they were often in bed when he got home. He describes himself then as frequently irritable, aggressive and unbalanced. Things improved when he down-shifted to the telecentre; he became less stressed with more time for the family and hobbies like the garden. Beate was able to work full-time, to realise her professional ambitions and to have her own income. Now as he stands poised on this new phase he feels life and work are in perfect balance. In the future when the children are older he would like to work more, but for now ‘everything is doing fine at home; I have flexibility, self-determination, and a good climate at work. ’ As a pioneer Erhard has become an evangelist for alternative working arrangements. He believes that traditional roles can be overcome were men to be offered more flexible working hours. He also stresses the importance of better and more childcare, pointing to the supervised homework service in his children’s school, and day nurseries with later opening and more flexible reception policies for children.

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130. Childcare consumes income but work makes it worth it

I

Having abandoned her previous career and spent one year at home, single mother Evelyn went looking for work. She found just what she needs. It’s temporary, she gets paid less than in her previous career, spends most of her salary on childcare, and has to run the house on her own. Is she happy? Too right she is, particularly because ofthe psychological benefit of ‘not having to stare at the four walls all day’. As she is the only employee of the company that is based in the region, her employer took the step of renting space in a telework centre where she could share facilities with others. She uses the office facilities, meeting rooms, telecommunications and other technologies, but even more importantly she gains support h m the others in the office. They operate a co-operative answering service and are generally there for each other, giving Evelyn a social aspect to her work that is very important for her. At home she has set up a self-financed office with PC, fax, e-mail, scanner and printer, but she generally prefers to work among colleagues at the telecentre. Evelyn is in her mid 30’s. Her little daughter Sandra is cared for during working hours by a registered child-minder, where she gets excellent care and other children to play with. It’s expensive though, consuming much of Evelyn’s income; yet she still earns too much to qualifi for State support. I

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3 1. You can do it all with a little help from your friends Elvira, who is in her late ~ O ’ S practises , what she preaches. As the promoter of her company’s telework programme she is responsible for putting telework into practice, creating and co-ordinating new jobs for teleworkers. In taking up this role she switched to part-time hours, and splits these between home and the office. It all began five years ago with the birth of her first child. After her maternity leave she returned to the office to work part-time. Two years later their second child was born and once again Elvira went back to work part-time, this time with a telework component. Her husband Gerhard (in his early 40’s) works 50-hour weeks at the ofice and he often travels for business leaving Elvira in charge of the family and the household duties. A cleaner comes in twice a week and both sets of grandparents help with the child-minding. ‘You have to keep in with the grandparents,’ jokes Elvira. Elvira works just one day per week, which she alternates between home and office. On a home week she would work 09:OO-12:OO and 13:OO-18:00, but in the office she is present between 1O:OO and 17:OO. Contractually she must work six hours each week, but this gets supplemented by a further four hours of paid over-time. Her workplace at home fulfils all her needs. She can use all necessary technical equipment for teleworking (PC online with fax and e-mail facilities, business phone, answering machine and ISDN connection). She is very content with her ICT equipment, which in addition to all regular expenses was financed by her employer. Like all children, hers have their lives filled with kindergarten and after-kindergarten activities. On office days the grandparents alternate the picking up and dropping duties, otherwise Elvira does this herself. The system runs like clockwork, until the grandparents are away or are sick; whereupon friends are called in as a second line of defence. With this arrangement Elvira also has time for herself and for social activities with her husband. ‘You can do it all,’ she says, ‘it is all a matter of organisation.’

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Case Studies

32. Care responsibilities force rethink on work life balance

Sabine, a busy middle manager working fifty-hour weeks for a large corporation. is thei main source of support for her elderly grandmother. When her grandmother began to lose1 her independence Sabine found she was increasingly taking time off to care for her, as well 1 as worrying about her while she was at work. How could she provide the care that was3 needed - shopping, taking her grandmother to medical appointments and looking after1 practical needs - and continue to do her job? Something had to give. As Sabine is the principal wage earner in the household (husband Rolfgoes to college) there was no possibility of her giving up work. so instead she looked at changing her work style. Her company offers a range of family supports including its own kindergarten. flexitime, and teleworking up to four days a week from home. About forty per cent of Sabine's working week is spent on project work that necessitates her presence in the ofice but the rest of the time she has her head down at the computer or talking on the telephone. She reckoned that about two days work per week could be done from home, especially the part that she does on her own and that requires quiet and concentration. The couple even moved to a larger apartment so that she could have an office at home. Her employer equipped her with a PC, personal organizer, fax machine and a mobile phone, and agreed to pay her home office expenses. Sabine was now a teleworker. Three days a week she works flexitime from the ofice, usually 09:OO to 18:00, while on the other two days she works from home. Home-based days are more varied. Around lunchtime she otten has a long break, during which she might visit her grandmother or take care of other tamily duties. One thing that never gets tackled during these breaks is housework, which is still done in the evenings, shared equally by the couple. Although her grandmother has now moved into residential care, Sabine intends to continue teleworking. She has found that although 'being at home does not mean there is more time in the day, you can manage it better'. With less commuting she is not so tired and does more exercise. The couple also find they have more time to spend with each other. something that was becoming less and less frequent as the caring duties swamped them. If there is a negative at all it's that Rolfcan feel a bit excluded when Sabine goes into the home office and closes the door on telework days. With only two days a week at home Sabine can continue her middIe management role; her three days in the ofice ensure that relationships with her colleagues are maintained. 3

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33. Father uses eWork to stay close to his family Divorce forces people to re-evaluate their lives, particularly where there are children. Stayat-home parents find themselves thrust into the workplace while working parents struggle to maintain or even improve relationships with children who are growing quickly. For management consultant Herbert (in his early 40’s) it was the latter that drove him to reorganise his working life. Herbert’s daughter spends weekends and a lot of the school holidays with him. This is only possible because Herbert can work flexibly. By re-organising his working life he has found that he is now able to ‘be there’ for her more. He does this through long-distance telecommuting and having two homes, one in the family neighbourhood and the other in the city near his office. Three days a week he works in the office, the other two he teleworks fiom home. Herbert carries his laptop with him wherever he goes (plus at times high amounts of paperwork). At home he uses ISDN, the laptop with separate desktop and a printer. This equipment is provided by his employer and used for business purposes only. The company also covers the official telephone charges. During the school term he can give full attention to his work during the week. At the weekend, when his daughter arrives, things change. Also, during school holidays he has his daughter with him a lot more so he works from home more, though the need for this is diminishing, as she grows older and more responsible. Despite the much improved work-family balance that he has achieved, Herbert’s work still insinuates itself into every comer of his life. He seldom gets the feeling that he has finished work, and finds himself working at weekends, studying work papers when his daughter is with him, or worrying about business affairs during family time. Weekends have to end early when he leaves for a business trip on a Sunday evening. The benefits far outweigh the negatives, though. eWorking has enabled him to remain living close to his family, parents and fiends, and most importantly for Herbert, he has much more time with his daughter. When he looks back now on his previous work style, Herbert regrets that he was not available more when his daughter was younger and needed more care. Indeed he goes further, pleading for a more child-oriented society in which employers offered more family friendly conditions, and the government provided more childcare facilities rather than dealing with the issue through financial instruments.

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Case Studies

34. Someone to hold the baby while the teleworker works

When their first child was born Peter, who is in his mid ~ O ’ S ,took six months paternity leave from his research job, and then returned three days a week: two in the office and one spent at home. On his office days, son Leon was with a child-minder, on home working days he looked after the child in p d l e l to his work. During this time, his wife Lena, alscl mid ~ O ’ Sworked , full time in her managerial job. He learned a lot from that experience and certainly would not do it the same way again! Peter found the experience very stressful because he was trying to work and care for the baby at the Same time. He had a permanently guilty conscience about work, about his son or both at the same time. Work, which previously had kept its own rhythm during conventional hours, gradually seeped into every comer of the day. He often found himself struggling with work in the evenings when Lena had come home and this did not do much for the quality of family life. With their second and third son they resolved to manage differently. Lena took extended maternity leave. Peter, who had gone back to work full-time by now, once again opted for a teleworking arrangement, this time with two days a week spent at home. However, he has learned to separate work and family when at home. Now work time is work time and Lena is there to look after the baby. Ultimately Lena intends to return to work on a part-time basis. If she can negotiate this then Peter will probably do the same, giving up teleworking and spending his workdays in the office. Then they can share family responsibilities equally and have the type of workfamily balance that they both would prefer. Public childcare provision is important to them both. While they would not like to see a situation emerge, as in some countries, where children are put in cdches from the age of six months so that both parents can work; they would like to have options.

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35. Home working duo swap long commutes for adjacent offices

Yvonne and Richard, who are both in their early 40’s’ have worked hard to restore their home; some weekends they might spend up to 20 hours together restoring and decorating. They love the area where they live, and the proximity to family and friends. So when Yvonne’s new job came with a two hour commute each way, and Richard’s major new client was over three hours away they never once considered moving. Instead they rethought the way they worked. A lot of Yvonne’s work as a researcher could be done from home and her new employer was open to teleworking. They worked out a mutually agreeable arrangement, with Yvonne travelling two days per week to the office, nearly 200 km away; the.other three days she generally works from home in her own work-room. As she is employed on a freelance basis, she provided all the technology herself, comprising PC, Internet link, personal organiser, fax, printer and laptop; she also pays the running costs for the ISDN communications. Her employer’s contribution is flexibility! She can work whatever hours she wants or feels necessary; typically that might mean starting early (say 06:OO)working till midday then having a long lunch and finishing up at 19:OO. This can vary from project to project. Richard, a management consultant, works a similar routine. His main client’s offices are 350 km away, a distance so great that Richard only goes to the office once a week. The other four days he works conventional office hours from home. With both of them at home at the same time they felt they needed personal office space, and ever the do-it-yourself enthusiasts they set about creating individual personal workspaces. Neither can imagine what life would be like were they doing the commutes. On days when they are at home together the working routine is disciplined, yet they find time for each other and feel they have greater flexibility to do the work around the house. What Yvonne describes as her ‘after work feeling’ has improved noticeably. She does find it difficult to stop working, though, but when she does she feels less stressed. This couple have made the telework decision as a lifestyle choice. It is a development they both view positively and each would like the arrangement to continue indefinitely.

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Case Studies

36. To retire at 50. squeeze a lifetime’s work into three decades

Jochen wants to retire when he is fitly. He likes to travel. spend time in the garden. play sports and walk the dog, but in order to be free to indulge himself in his 50’s he is prepared to work slavishly in his forties; that is his bargain with life. Self-employed for the last 12 years, he has built an IT maintenance and repair business around himself that requires him to be on-call 24 hours a day, every day. In practice thal equates to a 50 hour week, Monday to Friday 09:OO to 18:00, in the evenings till midnighl three nights a week, and every second weekend both Saturday and Sunday afternoons. At all other times he is available on call, and typically gets called out at least once a week. Looking back he cannot pretend he chose this situation; in reality he would like to finish work earlier and not work weekends. However he enjoys it. and feels he has achieved something at the end of each day. His attitude is ‘work is number one. and leisure time happens when work allows it’. The only time he can completely switch off from work is when he is abroad on holiday. There was once a difTerent Jochen, working civil service hours and leaving the job behind at the end of each day. After a while he became bored and he gave this up to study Informatics and during his studies started his freelance business. Jochen is in his early 40’s and his partner Anne is in her mid 30’s. They have no children. When children were an issue for the couple he decided against it as his work would not allow for it, and he assumed that his partner saw it the Same way. Instead they have their interests including a large dog, which requires walking at least an hour a day. The couple play badminton together, and Jochen also squeezes some gardening and travel into his life. Anne likes to separate work and family life and at times is bemused by her partner who ‘depending on the intensity at work has no thought lee for his private life‘. She works parttime, and helps Jochen in the evenings with his accounts. By a stroke of luck their home includes a granny flat, which Jochen has appropriated for his business. Here one finds the personal computers and high speed communications links he needs for the job, and it is here that he retreats in the evenings, giving Anne the space for her own leisure activities and fiends. the age of fifty. How feasible that will be remains to be seen, but for now he sees nothingi amiss in his life. with work and family well balanced.

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37. Busy manager finds telework extends the working day Maria’s boss wanted the team to be contactable at weekends and suggested that teleworking might make it simpler for them; Maria wanted more personal time. In the end these were two positions that were never going to be reconcilable. Inevitably the working day extended until eventually she found herself working twelve hours a day or more. As the IT manager in a large company Maria, who is in her early ~ O ’ S is , responsible for all IT and the management of software development. When four years ago her boss suggested the management team adopt teleworking she saw it as an opportunity both to become more productive and to be more: available for her partner and her school going son (who has special needs). ‘I expected to have quiet time to do conceptual work, to combine work and family better and to no longer have to go in to the office to do petty jobs.’ In practice she uses teleworking to extend her working day, and rarely works full days from home. Her office days are ten or eleven hour marathons, typically starting at 08:OO and ending at 19:OO or sometimes even later, though she regularly leaves at 17:OO on Fridays to beat the traffic. After a few hours of downtime at home she sits down to work again from 21 :OO. Every other weekend she works both Saturday and Sunday afternoons. ‘I often cannot stop thinking of work,’ she admits, adding that once she comes home she is sometimes so exhausted that she cannot take anything else in. Hans, her partner who is in his mid ~ O ’ Sworks , part-time in a freelance capacity, almost exclusively from home. His work patterns are erratic, dependant on whatever contract or deadline is most pressing, and consequently he may work odd hours, but usually no more than 30 hours a week. As a result he takes the major responsibility for the household management and the care of their son who needs a lot of attention. For his part, Stefan is not very enthusiastic about his mother teleworking. She has her workstation - notebook computer, printer and scanner - set up in the living room, and requires quiet while she works so the television cannot be on at the same time. In a sense she is present, but not mentally there and this is something he struggles to deal with. Maria works in an important management position and provides the main income for the household. She is supported by her husband in doing so, and acknowledges his background role: ‘Our family life is well arranged with or without me. There is not much for me to do at home.’ Broadly it is an equitable situation, though Hans would prefer that Maria spent less time on working and more on relaxation. Given her workload and level of responsibility that doesn’t look possible, at least for the moment.

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38. New baby causes rebalance of work and family life

Marion had her first child when she was in her late thirties. By that time she had established a successfbl career in public administration, and fearing she would damage her career prospects she went back to work as won as it was legally possible. She need no1 have bothered, for no matter how hard she tried, becoming a new mother had already damaged her prospects, and several months later she was passed over for the post of head 01 department. Marion and her partner John are both professionals whose lives were dedicated to theii careers until, in their late thirties, they decided to have a child. Their daughter changed everything. Before the birth Marion worked full-time for the Same employer and also had a lot of extra-curricular activity related to her profession. Legally she had to take two months maternity leave and then could only go back to work 19 hours per week. Recently that limit was extended to 30 hours and Marion duly increased her hours. She also worked overtime, feeling she had to do the Same amount of work as a hII-time employee to retain her status. Her employer offers flexitime and parttime work to staff, and because of her. importance to the organisation was prepared to modifjl her contract to allow her to work two days a week from home. Marion equipped and paid for a home ofice herself, comprising PC, printer. f a , scanner and ISDN Internet connection. On Mondays, Tuesdays and Fridays she works fiom home. In the mornings h m 08:OO to 12:OO she takes calls and answers her mail. In the afternoon while her daughter sleeps she squeezes in another couple of hours, and finally once the baby is in bed, a couple of nights a week she will do some more. Wednesdays and Thursdays she is in the office From 08:30 to 16:30, with another couple of hours in the evening. On these days she employs a registered child-minder. Despite this extra effort she sometimes feels excluded by colleagues. stung by remarks such as, ‘nice to see you here again.. .’ She sums the situation up eloquently: ‘the team falls by the wayside, you fight all by yourself. Not quite all by herself, though, because partner John has reassessed his priorities and comes home earlier fiom work as well as rescheduling complete working days to support Marion. Also, both partners contribute equally to household duties. With no time for anyhng other than work and parenting, stress can mount. Teleworking has been the only way to resolve the two roles, but it too adds to the stress, with Marion’s work pervading family life, ‘my workplace is always there before my eyes’. Parenthood has caused compromises. She feels good about the flexibility she has to be with her daughter, but at the same time would prefer that there were less restrictions placed on her career. For the time being part-time and teleworking suits the family, and Marion wants to continue the arrangement until her daughter goes to kindergarten. At that stage she would prefer to go back to the office but probably still in a part-time capacity.

Case Studies

161

39. New mother makes choice between career and family

Margaret made a conscious decision to abandon career ambition to have a child when she was in her early thirties. Five years on she remains happy with that decision, though constantly tired tiom balancing parenting with part-time working. ‘I had to choose between having a child or being a career woman,’ she recalls. ‘I could not imagine working full-time as a parent, it would be too difficult to organize.’ Before her son was born Margaret worked full time as a programmer for a large corporation. It was a good job with career prospects and she and her husband Jens considered the options carefklly before deciding they were ready to have a child. She took one year’s maternity leave and then gradually eased herself back into work one day per week. A friend who was also anxious to stay in touch helped her back into the workplace by sharing the childcare outside of the kindergarten hours. This gentle reintroduction gradually extended until two years ago she found herself back working five days a week part-time, with a telework component. Margaret’s employers operate completely flexible working hours with no core time; she need not conform to any fixed working hours during the day, except to attend team meetings. She also qualified for its telework programme, and opted to work three days a week from home. Today she works 22.5 hours a week, Mondays, Thursdays and Fridays at home; Tuesdays and Wednesdays in the office. Work gets interspersed with her son’s routine. He goes to kindergarten Erom 08:OO to 12:30 and during these hours Margaret works. She picks him and his fi-iend up on the three days she is at home and minds them until 17:OO; her childcare partner covers the other two days. In this manner she gets to work at home undisturbed in the mornings, which is just as well really as space restrictions forced her to site her workstation next to the television. When she works in the evening, (which happens very rarely), her husband has to wear headphones to watch television. At home she uses a notebook (online), which - due to lack of space - has no separate monitor installed. She also has a laser-printer, e-mail, an ISDN-connection as well as an answering machine. Her employers provide all the equipment and a lockable desk unit. They also cover regular telecommunication costs but she has to pay the electricity herself. Husband Jens takes a back seat at home. According to Margaret his work is ‘a men only domain, with a lot of pressure in connection with deadlines’. He sometimes takes time off if the kindergarten is closed, but in the main the household and the primary caring responsibility falls to Margaret. It is a situation she is only moderately content with, wishing that her husband had more time for their son. With only two days a week in the office Margaret feels sometimes isolated from the social networks. ‘You do not get to know everything that is happening. You easily miss what is going on in the gossip mill if you only come in twice a week.’ Still she professes herself happy with her decision and next year when her son starts school she would like to increase her telework component and only go into the office once a week.

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40. Husband and wife team always available to the children

Three years ago, in his mid ~ O ' S , Hans was ofrered his dream job - management responsibility, substantially increased salary, and the opportunity to lead a committed team in a respected company. There was just one problem: the office was 250 km away from home and the family was not prepared to move. His wife Stefmie, who is in also in her mid-30's had a good job of her own. and their two daughters were doing well in school and in their community. Although no one else teleworked, his prospective employers were prepared to be flexible and he was able to negotiate a two day per week teleworking clause in his contract. Mondays to Wednesdays he works in the ofice, often doing a twelve hour day; Thursdays and Fridays he spends at home, working in the morning and having lunch and doing activities with his children in the afternoon. Depending on the workload he also works at weekends, generaily in the morning when other family members are still asleep. The family live in a large house and the space allows them to dedicate a mom as a home office, and also to have an au pair who supports the family with shopping and cleaning and looking after the children. The home ofice is well equipped with PC, e-mail, fax machine. and printer. Besides, Stef'ie and the two girls each have their own PC. Of the business equipment the fax is the only machine that gets used privately. Despite all the technology Hans believes the telephone remains the most important device: 'all else are toys'. Stefanie also works full time. She has managed to arrange her management role around her husband's work style, so that when he is absent she scales down her involvement, finishing work at 15:OO; when he is at home she works on until 17:OO. Stefanie works close to home making it more likely that it's her work that gets disrupted by family emergencies. unless Hans is at home. Like many home-workers documents lying around, the diverted telephone and the e-mail access remind him or tempt him to work in his spare time, but in practice Hans has become quite good at making time for the children during his home days. They have lunch together and he can take them on afternoon activities. The children complain that he is away so much, but he feels he is there for them more throughout the week. commenting that he 'sees his children more often, but more irregularly'. The main problem is that the couple has less time with each other and no personal time at all. Hans stays away fiom Monday to Wednesday in a rented apartment, and when he returns Stefanie uses his presence to work more. At the weekends they struggle to make time for each other, helped by the au pair who baby-sits so they can go out in the evenings, but more often than not one or other has to work. Time together has become more rare and more valuable. Nevertheless Hans feels he has achieved the best balance between his career ambitions and his family given the circumstances, and would like to continue with the alternating telework arrangement at least for this stage of his career and family lifecycle.

Case Studies

163

41. Newly married couple telework together

When thirty-something Martina married forty-something Erik she did not bargain on his bedroom habits; he in turn was unaware what she liked to do in the living room. In two years of marriage they have learned to tolerate each other’s little foible but they will never totally come to terms with it; eventually they will have to get a bigger apartment so that each can do what they do in private. Martina and Erik are highly educated academics and two days each week they work from home; Erik in the bedroom, and Martina in the living room. It upsets Martina that Erik has set up his workspace in the bedroom, but she cannot complain as she has established her desk in the living room. Erik concedes that sometimes he ‘cannot stop working’. He never has the feeling that he has finished working for the day, and has to consciously create space in his mind and home that is not shaped by the work rhythm. ‘He will suddenly jump up from a meal,’ says Martina, ‘and rush off to send an e-mail.’ She also struggles with the separation of work and leisure and often sits in the living room looking from desk to television wondering which will win. Erik works from home Fridays and Mondays; Martina’s timetable makes Thursday and Friday more suitable days. On the day they overlap they might take breaks together or coordinate their timetables - with no children they have a busy social life of friends, culture and sport. Being in the IT area, it was a matter of professional honour for Erik to set the home office up himself. He cabled the apartment so they could share an ISDN line and connect in remotely to the college via a secure connection. All their equipment is self-funded with the costs deducted in their income tax return. On the whole they are both satisfied with how they have arranged their working lives. It gives them a greater degree of autonomy and the peace to do work that requires concentration. All they need to make their set up complete are two additional study rooms, and that means moving!

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42. End to commute creates balance in young woman’s life Most commuters struggle into the city centre from the suburbs, but Ute (in her late 20’s: took a novel approach - she attempted to live in a city centre apartment and commute 40 km to an adjacent town. Although she was moving against the traffic she found it just as time consuming, often up to 90 minutes each day. So when she was offered a great job within walkingkycling distance of her apartment she thought it could not get better. Then he1 employer suggested she worked two days from home. Her typical working week is split in two: Mondays to Wednesdays in the office: Thursdays and Fridays at home. On teleworking days she can organise her work to suit. perhaps with a longer lunch break, for example 09:OO - 12:OO and then 15:OO-2090. She has a fixed term one-year contract that stipulates 40 hours per week, although in reality sometimes the hours mount up to 50 or more.Time can be taken off in lieu of extra hours. Ute works as a consultant and project leader. Most of her work is spent in h n t of a personal computer writing and researching, with little client contact. She bought herself a PC, while her employer meets the communications costs. The role suits teleworking, and at home she concentrates on tasks that require a high degree of concentration. The job challenges her, increasing her stress levels but in a positive way. Now that she has her life in balance she looks askance at her partner Rainer (who is in his early 30’s). He works in design, doing similar hours to herself, but spent almost exclusively at the ofice. He generally works 09:OO to 19:00, with a minimum of a onehour commute each way to work. That means he is gone in the morning before Ute gets up. and back late in the evening. Consequently she finds herself doing all the domestic work in their small apartment, though they both claim to feel equally responsible. Ute works hard to have ‘her head free’ in the evening, but nevertheless finds it difficult to put work away, and often works longer in the evening than anticipated. On these occasions Rainer cooks the evening meal. This creates the opportunity for them to be together and she feels their relationship has benefited as a result. Rainer is not so sure! He notices the changes in her, particularly her increased balance and contentment, but gets irked by how their conversation strays too firequently to her work and her daily routine. That’s a small issue however. As Rainer concedes, ‘if she is feeling good, I also benefit a lot.’ And Ute is feeling good. She feels more self-confident, more appreciated at work, md more in balance in her life.

Case Studies

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43. Father’s terminal illness leads to re-evaluation of work priorities Monika’s father’s terminal cancer diagnosis was a great shock to the family. His wife had recently died and he had moved into an apartment to be closer to his daughter and now this. They had barely come to terms with the news when he had a fall and from that point until his death was confined to a wheelchair. With the support of her two sisters and professional carers Monika took on primary responsibility, putting on bandages, cooking for him, taking him to doctors, hospitals, etc. None of this would have been possible without the support of her employer. Monika and her partner Wolfgang both work for the same large company. They are both 40 years old and have no children. For some time their company has offered flexitime. Over time it refined the system, doing away with core hours, so long as the telephone in each department was manned at all times. It also initiated a telework project in selected departments. Wolfgang was eligible for this, but a special case was made for Monika because of her father’s illness, on the understanding that the couple would share one workstation. The scheme on offer was alternating teleworking, one day in the ofice, one day at home. They set up an office in their basement, with a terminal, printer, fax machine and ISDN connection and Monika began teleworking. ‘It was a blessing,’ she recalls. ‘I thanked God around a thousand times a day for it.’ On telework days Monika would get up early in the morning to work between 06:30 and 09:OO. Then she would walk the 7 minutes to her father’s apartment to make his breakfast. Between 1O:OO and 12:OO she worked again, and then returned to her father to spend the lunch break with him. In the afternoon she worked between 13:OO and 16:OO before returning to him once more. Throughout his illness, which lasted 15 months, she practised this work pattern, one day in the office, one day at home, and only for a brief time before his death did her time in the office decrease to one day per week. Because everything happened so fast she felt that her father would not have adapted to being cared for in a nursing home. ‘Every day that a dependant needing care does not have to go into a home is a day gained. Telework should temporarily be made possible for everyone in that situation.’ As expected her father died, and after the grieving period Monika went back to work but decided to keep the teleworking arrangement. As the months wore on Monika had found the telework regime suited her lifestyle. When she was looking after her father, she often interrupted work because of family reasons. Now this is not an issue and she also stopped worrying about work matters in her spare time: ‘many years ago I could not forget about work, but you have to learn to switch that off.’ She is disciplined, but also able to take advantage of the time flexibility, for example going cycling in her lunch break, and only eating in the evenings when Wolfgang returns. (He also took up teleworking but found he still spends most of his time in the ofice.) Monika believes telework has positive benefits for the individual, the employer and the family. ‘Those who works from home are more balanced, but they work harder.’

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44. Work revolves around new baby‘s rhythm After the birth of her third child, Clara (in her late 20’s) was eager to get back to work. and 1 her employer was keen to have her. However with two young children and the baby, the1 cost of childcare would have been prohibitive. She discussed going back to work with her partner Gerd, but they both knew they could neither afford the childcare nor put the1 responsibility on her mother who lived nearby. Then her employer suggested telework. Clara‘s clerical/administrative job is ideal for teleworking. It involves a lot of personal 1 computer work with frequent telephone conversations; face-to-face contact is rarely necessary and there is no people or project management component. She had previously worked part-time, and her employer suggested that if she h d e d her own PC they would meet the telecommunications costs for a dedicated business telephone line. There was no ideal workspace in the home, but they squeezed a desk into the bedroom and she took up the opportunity. The average working week now is 8-10 hours. There is no core period, but generally Clara finds she works between I2:OO- 15:OO two days a week, and one evening a week from 19:OO-2 1:OO, though this is heavily dependent on her daughter’s sleep pattern. This ability to be able to adjust her work pattern as childcare demands is the most important aspect of her set-up. During school holidays for example she hardly works at all, achieved by distributing the majority of her work to before or after the holiday or by delegating important tasks back to the ofice. With small exceptions she believes she is just as productive working from home. Sometimes when a problem arises that has to be referred to colleague at the office the fact that she is not present slows things up but generally work goes on as normal. Also, there are often interruptions to the work routine: you cannot tell a one-year-old to be quiet because mummy is on the telephone! On the whole the well-being of her family takes priority and she schedules and reorganises her work around her children’s needs. The two older children are now able to come home for lunch where previously they had to go to their grandmother’s. Their granny also frequently had to step in to cover for Clara and this rarely, if ever, is required now. The fieedom to put her family first yet still contribute in the workplace has had a positive impact on her. She feels less stressed and psychologically more satisfied. For now she would like to continue working this way, at least until her youngest is in nursery. Then an alternating telework arrangement with increased hours might be more suitable.

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45. They seek him here, they seek him there You never know where you will find Harold (in his late 40’s) - at a football match, in the Parliament, or following some movie star around. An outside broadcast sound engineer, he goes wherever the station sends him. It is fim, but it is definitely not glamorous, and the very irregularity of it is too much for some people. The fact that he was away so much and could not be relied upon played a major impact in the ending of his first marriage. He got a second chance with his second wife Marion (in her early 40’s) and, determined not to let it happen again, he transferred his office from the station to his home. If he was going to be on the road 70 per cent ofthe time he would spend the other 30 per cent at home. The move was only possible due to developments in telecommunications, particularly ISDN and mobile telephony. The job is inherently family unfriendly, even though his employer provides a range of family oriented inducements including a kindergarten, flexitime, telework and a range of financial allowances and separate children’s allowance for staE With a grown family, all Harold needed was more time with his partner. He has rarely been back to the central office since; in fact he has not seen his boss for the last nine months. ‘As long as every job works out fine there is no need for face to face contact.’ Although he is a full-time employee with a 38.5 hours per week contract, the job is ‘work-on-demand’. He gets contacted by his manager by phone, fax or e-mail and is told the date and location of the next job. Typically there are around four trips a week with at least one of them requiring an overnight stay. Every six weeks he is on call for a week. He must be available via phone or pager between 05:OO and 18:OO for unforeseen events that are to be covered on the spot. On these days he takes an outside broadcast unit home with him to be able to react instantaneously. He often works Saturdays and Sundays, covering sports events. In contrast Marion’s career could not be more orderly, with regular hours 08:OO-17:OO Mondays, Tuesdays and Thursdays; and finishing at 15:OO on Wednesdays and Fridays. Harold’s aunt (in her mid 70’s) lives next door, and although she is still independent, she requires a little looking after. He finds it quaint that she cannot adapt to him working from home; when she sees him at the computer she invariably asks, ‘are you playing games again’. Harold thinks he does his share of the housework, Marion begs to differ, however they both concur that with the new work arrangement he does more than before. They also agree that they get more time together, fulfilling the original intention of him moving his office to home.

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46. Alternate days teleworking creates the desire for more flexibility

work at six thirty; she would finish at lpm followed by an hour commute home. The grandmother got the child ready for school, and Susanne was there when he returned in the afternoon. The system worked well, but eventually its self-imposed rigidity began to stifle her.

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47. Working from home facilitated by in-house child-minder

Mairead and Tony, both in their mid ~ O ' S both , work from home, she about 80 per cent of the time in her self-employed consultancy work and he about half that in his professional job. They have separate offices and try in so far as possible to keep strict boundaries between work and home life. When you cross the threshold into the home office, you should be at work and that is that. Mairead typically works a standard working week of 35-40 hours, organised at typical oflice times. She works mostly at home, although she does some work on clients' premises as well. Tony works much more irregular hours. Two days a week might be spent working fiom home and the rest at his city office a long commute away. They have equipped themselves with all the essential tools for home-based working PC, internet connection, f a s o h a r e , printers and so on, as well as a high speed telecommunications link. Things would be even better if they had an 'always on-line' at a fixed price and videoconferencing would also be useful. The key to this arrangement is the child-minder who collects the children from school and minds them in their own home for approximately three hours each day. The couple feels that a large part of the success of their home working arrangement comes from the quality of the childcare that they have managed to secure. Even still, because she has the primary role as home-maker, Mairead found it hardest in the beginning to establish the work life boundary. If she is spotted by the children, say making a coffee, she finds it dif'ficult to walk away, but she says, 'you have to learn to shut yourself of'f from the children during working hours, especially as our childcare arrangement is so perfect'. Although both agree that being at home a lot and being less involved with colleagues has impacted a bit on their social life, overall they feel that the arrangement works quite well. Mairead feels empowered by her choice even if at times the work family boundaries can become a little blurred for her liking. Tony finds that his wife's flexible work-style enables him to put in the time and effort that's needed to build up his career.

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48. One partner working from home suits DINKY couple for now

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For someone who likes working in his pyjamas there is no place like home! For IT! specialist Michael dress codes. commutes, and office conventions drove him out of fulltime employment to become a freelance contractor. Two years later his business is thriving and his wardrobe doesn't contain a suit. After college Michael, who is now in his early 30's. worked in a non-technical area in a traditional ofice-based arrangement. He gradually picked up IT skills in the course of his work and leisure interests and decided eventually to set himself up doing freelance ITrelated work, with a focus mostly on the needs of small non-technical companies. His oflice is the living room o f a small apartment he shares with his partner Anne. He has this equipped with PC with internet connection, laptop computer, scanner, printer. fax software and so on. They have one telephone line shared for work and fmily purposes. Michael also uses his mobile phone a lot for work purposes, including e-mail. He f'eels that his business would really benefit from an 'always on' fixed price high-bandwidth sonnection. Anne, who's the same age as Michael, works in a commercial company, and provides the business backbone to her partner's creative talent. She also contributes a lot of the social life as the opportunity for social interaction in Michael's e-mail driven business is limited and she feels that working from home has made him less sociable than before. For Michael's part, he feels that he meets lots of people on-line and spends a lot of time chatting 3n the Internet. As well as keeping up with technical developments, he also conducts a lot 3f family business on-line, such as booking holidays and paying bills. Anne rarely brings work home but for Michael the worldlife interface is blurred. He works from the living room, counts technology and the Internet as a hobby as well as an :mployment, and his working day frequently extends into evenings and weekends. Work is :ver present, physically and psychologically. For him, this is not a problem: work is his lobby and he views his flexibility as a support for balancing work and family life. Anne. hough, would ideally Iike a bit more separation of work and family life. For these reasons .hey will look for more space when they move from their current apartment and may even :onsider getting an office outside the home at some stage.

Case Studies

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49. Self-employed father working from home suits teenage son

Pat swapped the corporate life in a large company for the uncertainty of self-employment as a business consultant. Power suits and board meetings were replaced by home working, and a more relaxed casual life-style. It is a change neither he nor his wife Orla regrets. The couple, who are now in their early SO’S, get more time together, his involvement in the family has increased, and he now has more time for hobbies. Another effect has been that he now more frequently sees his teenage son pulling out of the drive in his dad’s car! The family home was wired for work. Today it sports a local area network, with ISDN link to the Internet. There are a further 3 PSTN lines and three mobile phones. The home office bristles with technology, the typical laptop computer, PC, printer, and scanner, alongside the not so typical CD burner, digital camera and video conferencing equipment. The house is now so ‘smart’ that technology has become a factor in any decision about moving home. When he first began working for himself he based his business in a centrally located office. It was only when his older children, who are now in university, moved out of home that he felt he would get the physical and mental space to work from home. From the beginning Orla and he laid down ground rules: she was not to be seen as his de fact0 secretary, he was not to bring clients home for meetings. There were also discussions with the children to agree on ways of avoiding any potential work-family conflict. Friends and neighbours also had to be considered. Pat’s car in the driveway had always signalled an open house invitation to coffee, and he has had to tactfully indicate that now he is working during the daytime even though he’s at home. Overall, the arrangement works well for everyone and the family are likely to continue with it for the foreseeable future. However, although it works fbr Pat he does not advocate home working for everyone: ‘you need to have the personality for it’, he says.

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Case Studies

50. Pressures of two income family force rebalance of life-style

Brid, in her late ~ O ’ S ,thought she had her life together: wife, mother to four kids. homemaker and professional career. To have it all she had to do it all, her compromise being a 20-hour working week, split between office and home. As the family demanck increased she found that even that compromise was not enough, so she raised the stakes. opting to become self-employed and working the Same part-time hours entirely From home. Time flexibility is central to the new arrangement. When her children are at school Brid works as a consultant from a reorganised reception room in their 3-bedroom home. When the children are on holiday she prefers to be even more flexible and keep work commitments to a minimum. Her work - research and report writing, administration and financial management - suits this flexible style. She has a PC and internet connection, printer and scanner. a separate telephone line for work purposes, and a mobile phone for when she is working outside the home. When she was an employee her employer provided all the equipment and contributed to the running costs but since she went self-employed she has had to purchase and pay for everything herself. Although Brid would prefer her own ofice space, she has been able to set the boundaries between work and family effectively. Where she used to find herself thinking about the family constantly while at work and vice versa, now the conflict rarely occurs. The key has been to work regular hours while the children are at school, even to the point ~f rescheduling or refusing appointments which conflict with this policy. Husband Noel, who is also in his late 40’s works a standard office-hours week in an administrative job. He rarely brings work home, nor works weekends. Because she has more control over the projects and hours she works, and can organise the house during part of a normal 9-5 working day, Brid is mainly responsible for the domestic work and looking after the children. She would like the rest of the family to do more, but is resigned to the fact that to get a more even distribution she would still have to adopt a supervisory role. The family benefits by Brid absorbing most of the household stress. As Noel recalls. ’before this working arrangement morning times were chaotic. Trying to get everyone wganised and out in the morning was very stressful. If Brid had to travel for work, the situation was further exacerbated. Who would mind the children, organise the household chores, etc.‘ Brid says that she is happier too and intends to keep working in this way for as long as possible. She has more time for her children and her husband and has also become more involved in community activities.

Case Studies

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5 1. Employer helps find solution for do-it-all working mum Mother of three Niamh has evolved a formula for doing it all, even though one of he1 children has special needs and requires constant personal supervision. The fact that the children go to different schools poses additional logistical challenges. School m s , extra curricular activities, medical appointments merge into one continuous car journey ! Combine that with a professional career and conflicts can quickly emerge. Niamh, who is in her late ~ O ’ Sis, employed in a very responsible administrativejob and she was unwilling to surrender this, even while putting the needs of her family first. Rather than give up work she found that, with the support of her employer, she was able to migrate gradually to working fi-om home. First she worked partly at home and partly in the of‘fice and then progressed to a situation where she is now based entirely at home. She still has the same conditions of employment and periormance expectations remain high. The promotions and salary increases she has received under the new arrangement are an indication that things are working out very well. Her employer supplied a PC, which she has since purchased from them by instalment. She also has a printer, scanner and fax software, as well =.an ISDN line and Internet connection. Her employer contributes to the communications costs and provides maintenance for the equipment, including replacement parts and software upgrades. Her husband Declan who is in his early 40’s works fbll time outside the home in a job that is demanding of his time and the household management falls to Niamh. He usually has left for work before the morning routine of getting the children ready for school begins; by the time he returns in the evening meals and homework have usually been completed, but he does take the lead in getting the children off to bed. Niamh works a notional 20 hours a week, though in practice she works a W e r 15-20 hours overtime, cramming work into every moment not taken up by the children. For example, on Saturdays, when the children are watching morning television, she works fiom 06:OO-11:00, and on Sundays Erom 19:OO for a couple of hours. Apart from bringing in the much appreciated second income and eliminating the need for paid childcare, Niamh feels that simply being there has made a big difference to herself and the family. She now performs the same roles as before but seems to have more time to do it all, even finding a little time for herself. The small things make a difference, such as having coffee with her neighbour, playing with her children and having more time to get involved in local community activities. For Declan his wife’s rebalancing of her working life has been positive too. ‘I used to drop Niamh to work through the morning traffic and back again in the other direction to my work. It was tiring, demanding, and difficult. I had to bring the children with me because there was no one to mind them.’ Taking everything into account, Niamh says that, at least for the moment, ‘nothing would make me go back to working outside the home’.

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Case Studies

52. No day like the next for mobile portfolio worker

Patrick. in his mid-30's. epitomises the portfolio worker, switching effortlessly from role to role in a mix of freelance work and part-time jobs. He even maintains a separate mobile phone for each, so he knows how to answer when taking a call and hasn't been confused yet! Previously he worked in an oflice doing regular hours and it was a combination of funily, personal and business reasons that led to his current work style. With two preschool children and his wife Fiona expecting their third chiId, he felt strongly that he would like to be present in the formative years of their lives. Now he works on average 40 hours per week, but this can fluctuate depending on deadlines. No week, no day even, is like the next. Although it can vary. he tries to keep two days set aside as the ones for his main part-time job. worked on-site at his employer's otlice during normal office hours. For the rest of the time he sets his own hours with complete time and place flexibility in his working patterns. While mostly at home. Patrick does do quite a bit of travel for business purposes. Patrick uses the small bedroom in his three bed-roomed home as his home oflice. When working at home he uses a PC with Internet connection and a printer. which he purchased himself. He also has a separate mobile phone for every job and depending on the job a laptop may be provided. Fiona who is also in her mid-30's' cares for their two children full-time, and takes responsibility for the household management. With a third child on the way this situation is likely to continue, and both are happy with this arrangement. At night-time childcare gets handed over to Patrick, and at weekends he does the cooking. He claims to have more Znergy in the evenings now that he works fiom home. Patrick is almost never at home alone when working and he finds it nearly impossible to 3ctively manage the boundaries between home and work. However, he finds that 'having a tlexible work schedule and a disciplined approach to work' helps. In particular their youngest child really enjoys having Daddy around and fiequently interrupts him to play. Patrick's flexibility rubs off on Fiona. She finds the household routine changes when he is wound because he may take time off to spend an afternoon with the children, which could mean they eat later or that certain chores get put off. On the other hand, when he is away she feels lonely alone with the children, with no extended family to help with the childcare. Currently the f i l y are contemplating moving home. That move will involve finding a bigger home with space for a home ofice should Patrick continue to work h m home. However, even though he has enjoyed the flexibility of home working he is not sure about +ow long he will do this and he certainly prefers the situation where at least some of his work is in the ofice.

Case Studies

175

53. Alternating teleworking and 4 day week works well for couple with children

Stresses caused by the work commitments of both parents forced this young family to rethink its work/fmily balance. Both high achieving professionals, Matthew and Rebecca decided the pressures of their working lives were detrimental to family life. Rather than one parent downshifting they opted to totally reorganise their life-style. They both changed to a four-day week, with each working one or more of these days from home. In this way they have been able to organise their work schedules so that at least one parent is at home each day. They have converted a room into a home office and work there on alternate days. The home office is equipped with PC, Internet connection, and all the other equipment available in theirworkplace office, and there is telephone line dedicated to work use. Upgrading to an ISDN connection would enable more of the work to be carried out from home, and videoconferencing and net meeting services would also be helpful. Careful management and a disciplined approach have been important. They try not to sacrifice home working days because of meetings scheduled in the office and discourage work calls outside of conventional office hours. The impact on the family was immediate and almost entirely beneficial. Both parents, who are in their mid-30’s, feel that their young children are happier and healthier for having their parents around more. They are no longer cared for in a creche, and can interact with their parents throughout the day under the supervision of a child-minder who comes into the home. The children understand the changes in their own terms - Big Work is going into the office; Small Work is working from home - and generally tend not come in and out of the home work space too freely when their parents are working, though this can sometimes be a somewhat permeable boundary! For the parents too the re-balancing has been positive. The significant daily commutes to work have diminished and the stress of their previous life-style has been alleviated. This has had a positive impact particularly on the father and his role in the family. According to his partner he is ‘more psychologically available to her and the children and has more energy for activities with the children, and to revisit old hobbies’. From his perspective he finds that he now has a much better balance in the relative priorities he attaches to family and career. There have been some compromises and other consequences. Both find that there can sometimes be an ‘out of sight, out of mind’ attitude amongst employers and colleagues and there have had to be some changes in the type of work done that affect income and career prospects. Overall, however, both feel that the benefits far outweigh the negatives and would like to continue their rebalanced work-family situation indefinitely.

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Case Studies

54. International travel swapped for eWorking from home

It took a long-term illness for Laura, who is in her early ~ O ’ Sto , reexamine the priorities in her life but having done so she wishes she could have done it sooner. For her, time with her teenage daughter is more important than the supposed glamour of the international travel that was a big part of her former career, never mind the stress of trying to manage a household while in the air, or thousands of kilometres away. Being a lone parent with a teenage daughter made it even more difficult to achieve a good work-family balance. When illness forced her to stop working for a time she was determined to get back to work and retrained to develop the skills for a new career. Now she provides information technology services on a fieelance basis. With a large home she was able to devote one bedroom to a home office, which she equipped with PC and internet connection, fax. scanner, palm pilot and printer, and she was in business. She has a mobile phone and one tixed telephone line used for both work and family purposes. Now Laura works on a self employed basis, 20 hours per week. Apart from some regular training commitments, her hours are flexible. She could work more hours but she believes that by adopting this structured and disciplined approach to her work she safeguards family time for herself and her daughter. Things are so different now. ‘It was a nightmare,’ recalls Laura, ‘trying to co-ordinate Camily activities from overseas and when back at home trying to catch up on sleep, attend to my daughter‘s needs and keep everybody else happy. It was an impossible task. Now I am more relaxed. Working from home suits my daughter, myself, and my extended family. 1 should have done it sooner given the difference it has made to everyone concerned.‘ ,

Case Studies

177

5 5 . Health scare forces skilled professional to up sticks to the sticks

From a rural base, mid-30’s consultant Vincent provides services to clients all over the world. When he looks up fkom his desk, he sees the mountains of his home region, while on the screen he might be in a video-conference with clients in the US. This type of remote working is made possible for Vincent by good communications links, although it also needs frequent air travel. Their home is cabled for a local area computer network, and an office type telephone exchange. His home office space, detached from the rest ofthe house, comes equipped with every technology necessary to do his job. It’s as if he had lifted a piece of Silicon Valley office real estate and deposited it on the side of his mountain. Vincent has worked this way for a number of years. Previously he had a very demanding job that he loved but was constantly stressed to the point that it had serious impacts on his health. He realised his work patterns would have to change and used his business contacts to start again as an owner manager in a company of one - himself. His revised work style suits his family better too. His wife Lily, who is also in her mid30’s is currently happy to be managing the household on a full-time basis, and their three young children were pleased to have Daddy around more, less stressed, less tired and more available to them. Their school-going daughter particularly relishes getting home from school and joining her father in the home of’fice, where she plays computer games quietly while he works from another PC. With the home office detached from the house itself Vincent gets the psychological feeling of being at work. Ever conscious of the strain he once put on himself and the family he works regular office hours, and is open to the family visiting him throughout the day. At 18:OO he switches off the mobile, and rarely diverts the oflice telephone calls up to the house. Once he would have taken telephone calls all evening from around the world, and mealtimes had to be staggered to accommodate his clients. This was an enormous stress builder as one never knew when the telephone rang if it was a work or social call. Now Lily can use Vincent as a back-up resource for childcare. ‘The children are really benefiting from having their father around. They have a great relationship with him and it is a high point for them and for Vincent to come and visit him in his office after school.’ He also sees a side of the family that working parents rarely get involved in, the afternoon activities, and often finishes work early to participate in these. If there is a downside in their set-up it must be the business travel. To keep up with events and clients Vincent has to travel a lot. Because the children have become used to him being around so much they miss him even more when he has to travel now. Overall, however, the situation is immeasurably better now that Vincent is working from a homebase and both he and his family foresee him continuing to work this way for the foreseeable future.

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Case Studies

56. Shift-working a struggle even with help ofextended family

, I

When Karen became a mum, she moved back home to live with her own parents again.' That meant she could continue in her shift-working job with child-minding support tiom! the extended family. Apart fiom a brief period of part-time work after her baby was born. Karen. now in her early 20's has continued in her call-handling job. The job operates on a 4-week rota of shifts rolling forward fiom 09:OO-17:OO on week one, to 1O:OO-18:30on week two. 1 1 :OO19:30 on week three and 12.00-2O:OOon week four. The shift system has a nasty sting compulsory overtime each week and a requirement to work three Saturdays in every month during peak business months. During this peak period there are times Karen only sees her daughter for 30 minutes a day, and she worries about the impact this has on their relationship. Add a daily commute of between one and two hours. and the picture is complete. Karen often refuses voluntary overtime, particularly after late shifts; she sees little enough of her daughter. She believes she was turned down for promotion because she is not available at short notice for overtime. The company does have flexitime and telework arrangements but not for Karen's team. However she was able to negotiate part-time working for a period, and there is a job sharing policy. She reverted to 111-time employment because she needed the money. Despite the long hours Karen likes her job, particular on the later shifts - her commutes are easier because they are off-peak, and she gets to spend the early part of the day with her daughter. She would prefer to have more time with her daughter, but she finds that they are both so tired when she gets home tiom work that they often simply fall asleep together. She feels run down and is frequently ill, and feels she takes longer to recover than other better slept friends. The peak months she describes as 'a nightmare'. She doesn't have the time to recharge at the weekend before starting work again on Monday. Her time with her daughter is further reduced, and the household management totally goes by the wayside. Hobbies are things ather people do. Karen acknowledges that even the life she has would not have been possible without the support of her family, particularly when her daughter was younger. While she has an understanding supervisor and manager she feels her company could do more, perhaps by providing childcare facilities on-site: extending telework to her department; or even allowing individuals with families to stick to one shift pattern. She for example would prefer to maintain the 1 1 :OO- 19:30 shift continuously as this suits her own biorhythms and mables quality time together for mother and daughter. 'Flexibility should be a "given". not zt the whim or the mood of a supervisor.'

Case Studies

179

57. Shift work has positives and negatives for working carer

The pay is not great, she has to work shifts, but Beatrice’s new job in a call centre feels like a gift from heaven. When you have sole caring responsibility for an ageing parent with incipient Alzheimer’s work can be a release from home. ‘I get out and away from mother, from the tension, the pressure and the torment of caring,’ says Beatrice who is in her mid30’s. ‘I mean that in a respectful way you know - work is a break from home’. Beatrice lives at home with her mother, who is still mobile but has become increasingly forgetful, a source of constant worry for Beatrice while at work. For a while she dropped out of the workforce but felt she had to get back to work to preserve her sanity and because she felt she could no longer stay at home full time. This precipitated a greater care involvement from the extended family. ‘It all helps,’ says Beatrice. ‘I’m glad I am not at home as often. Now that they have started to help I would like to encourage them to do more.’ Beatrice works approximately 40 hours per week on a system of early and late shifts. There are five potential early shifts, with staggered starts between 08:OO and 09:30. The late shifts are more variable: fiom 10:15 - 18:45; from 1:OO-19:30; and fiom 13:30-22:OO. Employees starts a week on early shift one, and week by week work through the five early shifts. Then they switch to the late rota before coming full cycle back to the early ones. During the late cycle there is work on one weekend day per week. The work culture is family fiiendly, with flexitime, part-time, compressed working weeks and swapping of hours all possible, and her immediate supervisors are very understanding and accommodating of her needs. Though her income is relatively low, she appreciates it a lot: ‘we can now plan for the future. In the past it felt like we were on the poverty line. Now I can plan for house improvements and maybe buy a car.’ Beatrice finds work has improved her social life too although sometimes the demands of caring mean that, ‘I cannot relax when finished work and I find it hard to mix when I am out socially because I am thinking about my mother.’ She feels her mother is less happy with the change and would prefer her daughter to be at home all the time. On some days she is forgetful, on others very lucid. She smokes, and has left burning cigarettes around the house. Beatrice has come home to find burners left alight on the gas cooker and on one occasion a plastic bowl alight on a gas ring. Accidents like these are a constant worry for Beatrice at work, especially because strictly speaking she should not receive personal calls whilst on duty but accepts them on her mobile phone. As regards technology, Beatrice feels that in the future a web camera might be useful to keep an eye on things at home whilst she is at work. However, she believes this could only work if you were in a position to react if there was a crisis, otherwise it just increases the worry. Remote monitoring of the cooker might also be a very useful facility, given the accidents in the past.

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Case Studies

58. Synchronised part-time working allows full-time parenting

While Ross works Anna minds the kids; when she is working he switches to childcare duty. It means that each must have unconventional work arrangements and forego some careex ambitions, but on the other hand their children get the benefits of having both parents around most of the time and there is no need for expensive childcare. There are compromises but the couple feel the benefits definitely outweigh any downsides. Anna had given up work after the birth of their fourth child. When an opportunity arose for her to take on some part-time work Ross opted for a more structured but flexible work arrangement for himself to help stabilise income and maintain the quality of family life. He took a part-time job with fixed working time commitments which also has seasonal aspects that fit well with the children’s school breaks. As well as this he works freelance from home in his technical profession. Anna’s job involves working from home three days a week and on the other two she arranges client visits that could take her anywhere in the country, sometimes with overnight stays. With four children space comes at premium in their four-bedroom house. There is no dedicated workspace, and when either ptirent works from home they use either the kitchen or their bedroom and try to manage their workload while the children are at school. This can be a challenge and sometimes work spills over into family time making it difficult to separate the two. They have a PC with internet connection, two fixed telephone lines (one for work and one for fmily) and a number of mobile phones. Almost the only constant in their working lives is Ross’ part-time job outside the home. At all other times either parent might be working from home, travelling or minding children. Co-ordinating the work schedules and the busy lives of four children of schoolgoing age can be a job in itself. The fact that they finish at different times adds extra logistical challenges. Ross and Anna share the school drops and collections, and both get involved in the after school routine. It is a complex schedule but, except in unforeseen circumstances, one or other parent can cover the day-to-day childcare. Anna still has the major responsibility for the household management, but when she’s away Ross takes over. Besides the benefits for the children Anna feels she has gained in confidence since going back to work. ‘I have gained a new skill, I meet a lot of people and I am more confident now. I choose the times 1 work and have more time for the family. I do work alone though, and I miss the social contact with colleagues.’ Also, her set-up is not entirely flexible. There are telephone calls out-of-hows that impinge on family life and some meetings do have to be rescheduled to cope with family emergencies if they occur when Ross is away at his job. Overall, however, the couple feel they have achieved a good work-life balance and hope they can continue the arrangement until the youngest children are in their mid- to lateteens.

Case Studies

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59. Work from home eliminates commuting, gives flexibility for care Frustrated by his commute to work, Paul decided to convert a bedroom into an office anc work from home. The change has also proved helpful for his wife Denise in her role a primary carer for her elderly mother. Paul works freelance in a technical area, mostly for a small number of regular clients. with an average working week of between 40 and 50 hours. Previously he worked from an office, but the commute became increasingly frustrating until eventually he had had enough and opted to set up an office at home. As a self-employed contractor Paul had to finance the setting up of his home office himself. He has to be careful about expenditure on technical equipment and cannot always afford what he would really like to have, for example, he would like an ISDN line but feels the costs are still too expensive. His work requires concentration and attention to detail. While he gets the peace he needs for this at home he does miss the social and team interaction at work. The change has also produced its own pressures: 'I try to stick rigorously to deadlines to preserve my reputation. It is hard to switch off from work now - it is ever present.' He feels he thinks about work a lot more now as he cannot afford to make mistakes and he misses the supp011 and input that colleagues would have made in the team situation in the workplace. Denise agrees that there are days when Paul can become quite stressed and she gets concerned that there are days when he does not see anyone except her - when he is very busy he may not see Denise all day even though they are both in the same house! In quieter periods the couple enjoy having each other around and taking coffee breaks together. They mjoy the flexibility of 'being able to create time' or take a day off by re-organising Paul's working hours. Paul's flexibility also enables him to help Denise to care for her mother, who lives on her 3 w n about 20 minutes away from them. She needs an increasing amount of care and they have an 'alarm response phone' connecting the two homes. Denise's mother simply has to press an alarm button and the telephone alerts Denise in case of emergency. Overall the couple are very happy with the flexibility and other benefits of Paul's homeDased working arrangement.

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C i m Studies

60. Father opts for primary care role in the family’s interests

One day Patrick and Pauline sat down and realised that they just couldn’t continue the way things were. Both were working full-time. with substantial business travel, yet they had twc young children and an elderly parent who needed some support. Both had permanent, wellpaid jobs with career prospects, so whose was going to have to give? In the end they agreed it would be Patrick who would scale down his work commitments and become the primary carer because at this time, Pauline had better career opportunities available. ’We were each travelling a lot,’ recalls Patrick, ‘often we would be on the phone to each other to see if the other person could get to the crkhe before it closed because one of us was delayed, or I was still on the road. As the children got older they began to dislike the creche‘s after school service too. My mother was also beginning to need more support.‘ An IT professional, Patrick opted for a freelance role as a consultant working part-time fiom home, supplemented with some part-time teaching work. He works mostly in the main family living room of their three-bedroom house but when the children are home he either moves to his bedroom or tries to work with the children in the background. He has a PC and internet connection for his work, and a printer and scanner that are also used for family purposes. The household telephone line is currently used for both work and family. and Patrick would like to get a second line (preferably with higher bandwidth) to use exclusively for work purposes. In practice Patrick has scaled down his working hours to about 20 hours per week between his two jobs and has arranged them in a flexible way to fit around the family. For example, the children finish school at different times and now he can usually pick them up immediately and avoid the need to use after-school care services. He is also more available to provide support to his mother Nora, for example, driving her to and from appointments in the daytime. It’s not all one way, though, and Nora reciprocates with occasional childminding after school on the occasions when Patrick cannot be there. Patrick also takes responsibility for the household domestic chores on weekdays. although once Pauline comes in from work he immediately hands over. ‘I find it can be trying to be at home all day with the household responsibilities and when Pauline comes in I tend to switch off and let her take over.‘ The children are happier, their granny feels more secure having her son around, and Pauline can continue bringing in the major income into the household. ‘Since Patrick started working part-time I no longer experience any major conflict between work and family,’ comments Pauline, ‘I know he is there to take cafe of things. When we were both working full-time I used to constantly worry about the children and have to organise my parents to collect them if we were both going to be home late.‘ Although the arrangement is generally working well for now, Patrick does worry about the effect the change will have on his career prospects. He also misses the social interaction of the work-place and would like to go back to a more conventional arrangement when family circumstances suit.

Case Studies

183

61. Shift working offers better option than low level home working

Before taking up her current position Louise did clerical-type work from home on a piecerate arrangement. She would get up at six in the morning and work until the children woke up; then in the evenings when they were in bed she would squeeze in another couple oi hours. It was uninspiring work and a dreary routine, worth doing only for the much needed income. ‘I used to see boxes of work as I walked around the home,’ recalls Louise, ‘I could never get away from it. Also, I missed the social aspects of going out to work.’ Today she works shifts at a call centre handling customer enquiries and complaints by telephone. 11 too is a relatively undemanding job, but one which fits around her family’s needs, and allows her to walk away at the end of the day. She works a rota of early morning, day and afternoonlevening shifts and must also work two weekends per month. Before the monthly rota is fixed, there is some room fo1 negotiation about shift schedules to be worked. Once it is fixed, the shift trading between staff begins, with employees organising swaps to cover family commitments or work preferences, and the company tries to accommodate these as much as possible. Part-time working is not currently an option but if and when it does become one Louise would jump at the chance. Also, she finds that the strict requirements in relation to punctuality and the fact that ‘they are not inclined to let you leave once you are in work’ are not very conducive to the unpredictable demands of family life. Husband Karl works in a 9-5 job, some distance from their home. Pre-school and afte1 school care is provided mainly by Louise’s mother. On her working weekends Karl cares for the family, and in their words, ‘they just get on with it’. Compared to her previous work she now has less time for doing things with the family. Also, although the degree of flexibility in relation to shifts helps - ‘I look at my diary regularly to see what’s coming up in case I need to swap a shift with a colleague so that I can be available for the children or for Karl’ - the shift pattern can still be disruptive ofthe family routine, particularly late evening and weekend shifts. Despite the compromises and juggling, going out to work full-time has had many advantages. ‘It has been good for my self-development,’ she says. ‘This is just a basic job, am doing it for the extra money and I am happy with its flexibility. While the children are young I do not want a job with a lot of responsibility. I want to give the time to them now. Also the job has perks which all the family can enjoy.’

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Case Studies

62. Rural life, city work for re-locators in search of the good-life

In idle moments many of us dream of a place in the country, away &om the pressures oi city life. Jackie and Allan didn't just dream about it, they did it, uprooting themselves and their three children in search of the good life. It was a clean break in every respect except one: Jackie took her job with her. When the family moved to a rural area 170 km fiom the city, the children found new schools and friends quickly, Allan launched into a new business start-up and Jackie, liking her current job, spoke to her employer and negotiated to relocate it too. As her job in the marketing area included management of a large team she began by splitting her time between home and work, three days in the office and two days at home. On office days she would either travel up to the city the night before or do the long commute in the morning. Quickly she found things getting tougher, with a heavy workload during office days and no more time for her children than she had in their previous life. It was time for a fresh look at the problem. She agreed on a re-organisation of her contract so that she could keep her job, but only work part-time and completely fiom home. Compromises had to be made, such as giving up the direct staff management aspect, committing to being present in the office for meetings and training, and being available for overseas travel (typically around once a month). Under her present contract she works twenty hours per week, typically during the periods her children are at school. Inevitably she works outside these hours too, but overtime is both flexible and remunerable. She makes business trips at least once a week, and on these occasions relies on a combination of child-minder and grandmother who lives nearby. Her husband's business is in its start-up phase and the long hours this entails means he is simply not available for childcare duties at present. A room in the home has been converted into an office and technology facilitates the arrangement. The company pays for all the equipment she needed to work from home, i.e. fax, mobile, email, PSTN line PC and laptop. It also pays the bill for the business telephone lines and looks after all maintenance including insurance. Jackie finds that she is still effective and professional at work but is less stressed and tired than when she worked full-time; she even finds time to help Allan with his business. The couple's expectation that country living would be better for the children has been vindicated, they see much more of their paternal grandmother than before, and Jackie has rediscovered the benefits of being part of the children's day. 'I get to find out what is happening in their lives as it happens, whereas before by the time I picked them up from the child-minder they may have been too tired to mention some things. I enjoy my time with my children and I am more involved with them now than before.'

Case Studies

185

63. Mother brings work home so she can provide preferred childcare Little Emma knew what she wanted. She was at school now and did not want to be parked with a child-minder each day until either mummy or daddy came home, and neither did her parents. So mother Alison changed her work arrangements to suit. Two years on they could not be happier with the arrangement. Alison works as an administrator and has totally reorganized the working day to accommodate her daughter. In the beginning she worked mornings in the office and afternoons at home but this progressed to working most days at home from her dedicated home office which is set up in an unused bedroom. Her employer equipped the home office with PC, and an ‘all-in-one’ printer, scanner, fax and photocopier; it also pays for an ISDN line. On a typical day she starts work at 07:OO and later takes a short coffee break to have breakfast with Emma and husband Bernard and see them off to work (Bernard works conventional hours in an office-based job) and school. Alison then works until it’s time to collect Emma from school. Contractually she is expected to work 33.75 hours per week (actually she works slightly more) and is expected to be available to offke staff between 09:OO and 13:OO by telephone and e-mail. During the core work hours Alison might visit her office once or twice a week, and also has an additional commitment to attend regular early evening meetings. The family has benefited from Alison being at home. Emma comes home to her mother after school and can play with her friends in the street. Alison can also liase directly with the school, rather than through a child-minder or notes in the schoolbag. The couple also feels that they work more as a team than before with Bernard reorganising his start and finish times to facilitate the morning school drop, to provide back-up for evening meetings and runs related to Emma’s extra-curricular activities. Domestic work is also shared more now. ‘It took quite a bit of getting used to.. .we squabbled until it was sorted.’ For Alison the impact has been more mixed. On the one hand she is more involved in her daughter’s life, and with the extended family and community, but on the other the continual requirement to perform in her job m5ans that she can be a bit more tired and stressed sometimes. However she brushes these concerns aside: ‘There is stress on me to make eWorking a success, so that others in the company will get the opportunity to do the same. But I also have a greater sense of personal achievement and feel more satisfied about my work.’ Ideally Alison would like to continue her flexible working arrangement until Emma has finished school. ‘This is the best work life balance I have found. All things being equal I would have given up work or gone part-time. With this arrangement I can still work fulltime and be a full-time parent, without the need for childcare.’

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Case Studies

64. Four on. four off shift rota has major impact on family life

Around the time his son was born Tom got a new job. After a period of unemployment ir was a great feeling - a new baby and back in work, even if it was shift work. Four years later he is still upbeat, but the onerous shift system is beginning to tell. The four-day rota involves two’12-hour day shifts at the electronics plant followed by two night shifts, then four days off. The rolling rota is blind to weekends or family life. and on two of the shifts Tom must get his sleep during the day. Tom reports no problems sleeping, but this would probably not be possible without the help of wife Sarah, who cares full-time for the children. ‘I end up taking the children out of the house so he can have an uninterrupted sleep,’ she says. ‘There are days when I would rather not go out, but I do it because it would not be fair to have the children running around the house. On the other side I do not like being in the house on my own when he is on a night shift.‘ Tom agrees that the shift pattern affects family life. ’There are times when I would rather be up playing with the children, but I just can’t.’ It also has a detrimental effect on their social life, particularly when the shifts roll into the weekend. When he works the two 12 hour day shifts Tom is too tired to do anythmg after work. They remember they used to go out quite a bit after his work but since he started working shifts they never go out at all or do anydung when he is working. He has also given up organized sport that he used to do regularly. He played sport in a league. His current shift rotation means that it is impossible for him to take part on this basis. He finds this devastating as sport was a large part of his life. On the positive side, working shifts means that he has blocks of time which he can spend with the family, he has much longer annual leave and he can offer his wife a break from the children during the ‘normal working week‘ if he is off. Nonetheless the family accepts the work arrangement for its financial benefits. They would prefer that he did not work weekends and nights, and they would like a more family tirendly work rota. Overall for Tom, though, having been unemployed means that any work is better than none, and the time off between shifts means he is available to the family then.

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65. Fuzzy boundaries but good work-life balance For eight weeks in the summer Trevor and Lisa stop work and take an extended holiday with their three young children to visit his parents and extended family who live abroad. They can do this because they are fieelancers and work from home. They have no regrets about foregoing conventional careers, and indeed can see themselves continuing with this lifestyle even when the children are grown. ‘It is the best of both worlds,’ claims Trevor. Both do creative jobs in the technology sector, evidenced by the technology in their attic office: three PCs, a scanner, two printers, digital camera, and ISDN telecommunications.Downstairs the children use a fourth PC for education and play. The children are of pre-school and young school-going age. A child-minder comes into the home three days a week and is a key to the success of the arrangement. Although the couple’s ideal is to equally share working and caring between the partners, Lisa did have to scale back her working hours for a time when her youngest child required a lot of attention and Trevor increased his for a while. Now both want to redress the balance. Boundaries between work and home can be hzzy. It’s flexitime with the emphasis on working whenever possible. Besides core working hours fiom 09:OO to 18:OO on three days a week for Lisa other working hours are determined by who has more work and whose deadlines are more important. Often, for either one or other of them, odd hours are snatched in the evenings and at the weekends, while at the same time trying not compromising their commitment to the children. ‘Sometimes it is not possible and work has to get the priority. When this happens I may have to work most evenings and a lot of the weekend,’ says Trevor. ‘I feel guilty when the children say, ‘daddy has to work’. There is no definite cut off point and this is a major drawback of the arrangement. When I used to leave the office I would close the door and go home. Here the door is always open. There is always an opportunity to go and do some work. Working for yourself requires a high degree of discipline.’ It works the other way too, though. For example, they cut back their use of a childminder fiom five days a week to three to force themselves to reduce work and spend more lime with the children. Both parents can work the entire day on the days that the childminder is there, and they negotiate who takes care of the children on the other days jepending on workloads and deadlines. Although it can sometimes be a stressful life, devoid of social contact other than by email and with work ever present, neither complains, knowing that in so far as is possible [hey have it good: ‘We don’t feel hard done by. We know that working pays for the long summer holidays. We experience our working lives together in the same way as some :ouples watch television together, and the children get to spend more time with us, and with :heir extended family in the summer.’

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Case Studies

66. Promotion traps father in work spiral Promotion proved a double-edged sword for IT professional Peter: greater responsibility greater income, but ultimately greater dissatisfaction and family disruption. It took a crisk at work for him to begin to feel that he might be being exploited and undervalued. Now he is seriously reconsidering his work-life balance. Work has always played an important part in his life; there are no boundaries between work and family and in his own words ‘the distinction is blurred and work often has ta come first’. His job requires him to ensure that his employer’s IT systems are always available, 24-hours a day and 365 days a year. He has no backup, as he has sole responsibility for this job in his organisation. It is a major responsibility but it is also his hobby and his home bristles with technology. He has a network of PCs, two laptops, a router, a web-cam, a scanner, a printer and a digital camera. He uses the PC network to simulate problems that occur in work so that he can practise solving them and there are cables everywhere. He does not have a dedicated workspace at home but is considering building an office extension soon. His zealousness and love of the job was fine for a time. At the end of a standard week he could go home and forget about the office unless he was intrigued by a problem that he would explore on the network at home. With promotion came oncall responsibility 24 hours a day, seven days a week. In practice that has meant about 18 extra hours a week answering calls, logging into the office via ISDN,and in some instances going back to the ofice. Given the nature of the man it has meant he feels permanently at work. The impact has been felt most strongly by wife Liz and their three young children. ‘The children really miss him,’ says Liz, ‘they are very young and like to see their dad. With his new job he goes in to the office a couple of hours most weekends and when he is at home it seems like he is on the phone or the PC the whole time.’ For her own part simple pleasures like a walk with fiiends in the evening have to be foregone because of Peter’s work. Liz now works part-time and does most of the family and domestic work. It is not all negative. though, and Peter’s work provides a good income. This has allowed Liz to scale back her 3wn work to part-time to meet the needs of a young family. Overall, though, Peter feels both work and family are losing out and the situation is becoming burdensome. One change that would help would be a lessening of the o n e l l burden by having a team working on a rota basis.

Case Studies

189

67. On-call demands needed husband’s down-shift

When Sandra took up her promotion she knew it came with a sting in its tail - shift work and on-call duty - but she did not realise just how disruptive it would become. Eventually husband Gary took a career break to support his partner and bring more stability to the lives of their two young school-going children. Promotion was important to IT professional Sandra but with it came responsibility for supporting a team of field technicians 364 days a year, 24 hours a day (Christmas Day was exempt). Contracted for 37.5 hours a week she actually would work many more hours overtime apart from the on-call, often not going home until a crisis was sorted. There was also shift work one weekend day per month. It wasn’t the salt mines. Sandra’s employer actually offered family friendly work arrangements, including flexitime, teleworking, and personalised hours to suit family commitments. Sandra’s problem was she was working so many hours she was unable to avail of any of this flexibility, though occasionally she did some ‘compressed working’ four days worked intensively and one day off. Her on-call responsibilities involved answering queries from the technical team and ensuring they had the appropriate resources in the field. She usually dealt with the calls in the hallway of their home. Typically the calls were late in the evening when the children were in bed but if they came at other times, and Gary was out she would have to distract them using the television. Calls could range from five minutes to one hour, but rarely involved Mlow up action like going back in to the office. ‘On-call working was very stressful,’ she recalls. ‘It is reactive work. You must find solutions and make decisions with immediate responses, yet you do not know what you are facing.’ She had no technological support while taking these calls, though it would have helped had she been able to log into the office network and take a colleague through a problem rather than talk them through it on the telephone. It was also very disruptive of family life. The family almost had to make an appointment to guarantee having uninterrupted time with Sandra at some time during the weekend. After a year of this Gary decided to take a career break to ‘bring some balance to family life’ and to clear the way for what was an important stage in his partner‘s career development. During his career break Gary did most of the domestic work and looked after the children after school. After three years of sacrifice, Sandra was able to move to a more senior but 9-to-5 position, and Gary could return to work. Their situations are now reversed as Sandra makes time for the family and Gary seeks to re-establish his career, where he does some overtime and weekend working. ‘It was a big shock for me when Gary went back to work,’ she recalls. ‘I had forgotten how much there was to be done in the home.’ Her regular routine means she now has more time for the children. She feels more focussed on their needs, and she ensures the weekends are kept exclusively for them. One problem still unresolved is childcare. The children grew used to their dad being home when they got back from school and are having to adjust to going to a minder until both parents return. f i e oldest child has a preference for being cared for in her own home so that she can continue to play with her local friends. It’s never easy!

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Case Studies

68. Shift working has had its day for tired carer

Do not talk to Mary about feeling tired. She counts the hours, hoping for the magic eighl hours sleep per day, feeling a constant numbness fiom lack of sleep. It affects he1 personally, her partner, her children, her job. And it has to stop. When she started this job a long time ago, before she got married and had children. ii was exciting. The career prospects and pay were good, and it was close to her home. Alsc the shift system on offer included very generous time off. The job itself was a responsible junior management role in the IT department of a large organisation. Initially the shift system worked well for the family. Their eldest son had a slighl disability and Mary’s shift ‘arrangement allowed her to take him to the round oj appointments and assessments that he needed. ‘There is no way even the best boss in the world would have given me the time off to meet all those appointments and I would nevet have asked for the time off..‘ Then new technology enabled a reduction in staffing levels and a change in the shifi system had a seismic impact on their lives. The schedule of three eight hour shifts over 4 weeks, including one week ofT, changed to one of four seven hour shifts, without a week off. It is a punishing cycle. Usually it takes her 2-3 hours to go to sleep after a shift, so when she works the late shift she might not get to sleep until five in the morning. Then she gets up again to get the children ready for school and goes back to bed to try and snatch a couple of hours. Shifts are not Mary’sonly problem. On top of this she typically works an additional 5-10 hours paid over-time each week, with occasional Saturday working. Although her employer does offer various family-fiiendly options. none of these benefits have yet reached Mary‘s section. Husband Neil’s job has regular working hours. His company offers flexithe and mcourages employees to work one day a week b m home through the funding of ISDN :ommunications. It is also flexible enough to allow staff to manage their family responsibilities around their work. Consequently Neil does a lot of the childcare, including pick up and delivery of the children to the cri%he. Recognising that his wife is constantly tired he does a larger proportion of the housework. After three years of this new shift m g e m e n t , he is becoming dissatisfied with the home set-up. The couple are concerned :hat they see very little of each other and not surprisingly want things to change. For two weeks of the shift, they have a telephone relationship only. Also, while shift working initially facilitated their son’s appointments with specialists, they find that the special :xercises which he needs to do regularly are neglected because there isn’t the opportunity x because they or he are too tired. The shift system and allowances is no longer a :ompensation for the negatives, and Mary is hoping to be able to change to a more suitable work pattern soon.

Case Studies

191

69. Home-based single mother feels ‘this is as good as it gets’

When her present job was offered to her, Shauna knew it was too good an opportunity to miss. On offer was a position more suited to her education, with complete discretion on how to fulfil her role, and best of all it could be based from home. For a single mother with a primary school going son, it was an offer too good to refuse. Shauna is a no nonsense business person. She asks no quarter for her single-parent status, often putting in 6O-hour weeks in her work as a business consultant. Her son John reacts well to his mother’s attitude, giving her space when she is on the phone, coping with the varied care arrangements she has to put in place, and occasionally even accompanying his mother to business seminars where he gets to meet her clients. ‘John has a lot of interaction with adults. I feel he benefits from meeting people socially, and he is proud of me, his mum, because of what I do.’ She also feels her relationship with her son has deepened since she started working from home: ‘we can talk while things are still fresh in his mind, as opposed to late in the evening when he has almost forgotten the day’s events.’ The working day gets organised around John’s timetable. Shauna works from 8:30 to 14:30 and is available to pick her son up from school in the afternoon. On three afternoons he has extra-cunricular activities, allowing her to extend her working day. Shauna’s employer gives her complete discretion about organising her job and working times. She organizes her work so that the bulk of her workload is undertaken during the school terms with a lighter workload in the holiday periods. Also, workload intensifies about twice a year for a couple of weeks during which she has to be available 80+ hours a week. During these times she works several hours each evening once he has gone to bed and whole weekends too. Other than that she tries to keep evening work to a minimum. Her dedicated home-office is set up in a disused bedroom. At home she uses basic technology - a PC and printer with Internet access and a mobile phone. The company paid all the set-up costs and covers the running and communication costs. She has the use of a city centre office if she needs additional administrative technology and support. On days when Shauna has to travel she relies on neighbours and other mums to help out. She works hard at these relationships, making sure she returns the favours with their kids. During the summer she takes as many days leave as possible but otherwise relies on summer camp to fill the gaps in childcare. Not surprisingly she suggests more flexible childcare would facilitate other parents like her. ‘I rely on babysitters in the evenings. Maybe a kids’ hotel like the ones they have in other countries would be a good idea for working parents who have to travel. The kids would love the idea of packing up to go to the hotel.’ Both mother and son are happy with the set-up, except for the occasional times when she feels she relies on the television too much to keep him occupied when he is at home and she is working. In her own words, ‘this is as good as it gets. We are both happy. I find that working from home means I am very focussed, so work benefits too.’

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Case Studies

70. Work omnipresent but less stress thanks to home working

When she wakes up in the morning, Joan opens her eyes and sees her desk and computer. In her small home, with the other bedrooms used by her two children, there is nowhere else to put it. ‘I don’t wake up and go, “oh no, there it is”, but there is no getting away h m it.‘ Joan works in the financial sector, mainly dealing with clients. Most of her work is telephone based, with a great deal of correspondence. Even though she has a separate line for work, the telephone and the post are constant reminders of the office job. ‘Work post (quite a volume) comes with my ordinary post. When I am on holidays I can turn the business phone to answer mode or redirect it to the office, but I still hear it ring. Also the post keeps on coming, and I find that I attend to it. even when on holiday. So I never really switch off fiom work.’ She decided to switch from a regular ofice job shortly after separating fi-om her husband. It was increasingly difficult to cope with the stresses of responsibility of a fulltime job, the two children and the household. She now works almost exclusively From home, logging on to her organisation’s computer to clarify information and update records. Her employer provided the PC and printer, and funded the cost of the business line. The change to home working had a significant impact on her life. She sorely misses the contact at work, both professionally and socially. ‘Now I hardly ever see my colleagues, md when I get irritated by a customer I have no way of d i h i n g my frustration. In the dEce I could share the story, and even though the problem did not go away I felt better.’ The perception among colleagues is that teleworkers do less work than office based staff for the same pay, a perception she herself shared prior to taking the role on. On a more positive note she is more available to her children. ‘I can talk to them about school when I collect them instead of waiting till after work when all their news is Forgotten.’ She spends more time with them during the day, getting involved with their activities, and inevitably becoming more integrated into the local community. She has also become more relaxed about managing the home. ‘When I came in from the 3fice I was like an engine, I ran around and had to get things done. Now I find that I am more relaxed. I get the same amount done but with a different attitude. There is less stress Ln my life.’ That said, work is omnipresent, and she often finds herself slipping up to the bedroom to do another hour’s work. Although she would prefer to go back to the office she knows she has no alternative, given her parenting responsibilities, so she is looking upwards to the 3ttic as a possible salvation. Converting this to a small office might help her to be better 3ble to draw the line between work and family, and leave work behind when the day is done.

Case Studies

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71. eWork helps but doesn‘t eliminate the need for business travel Maria has always been busy in her senior position in sales and marketing. Separation from her partner and the caring for a baby (with a mild disability) as well as two school-going children have added to the challenge of juggling work and family responsibilities. The baby needs to attend weekly specialist appointments, which she finds difficult to in addition to working full-time. Her employer suggested a solution. Recognising her value to the company, where she is a member ofthe management team, the company of’fered to equip a home office and to allow her to split her time between there and the office. When she is at home she works in the seldom-used dining room, equipped with PC with Internet, fax, ISDN connection and printer. She also uses a mobile phone and personal organiser. Her employer paid the set up costs and pays the bills on the ISDN line, which is used exclusively for work. Now Maria still works a full 40-hour plus week, but has structured it so she can be more present for the children. She works one full day at home and splits the rest between home and the office, usually mornings in the office and afternoons at home. It is hectic, but it works. On days when she needs to go to the office, she saves time by commuting in off-peak times. Her children are a lot happier and she can bring the baby to the weekly physiotherapy session. The children prefer to come home to their own home, even though their mother is working, particularly the eldest who can play with friends in the street. ‘I have hardly any personal time,’ says Maria, ‘but I am available for the children and they now benefit from being able to participate in after school activities and being available to play with their local friends. When I was working in the office, I had a lunch break to myselfto do whatever I wanted to do. Even if it was only shopping, it was time to myself. I really miss this. ‘ The mornings are productive, as are the early afternoons at home, but once the children come home from school and there is a part-time child-minder there can be conflicts, ‘the afternoons can be very difficult, the children constantly interrupt my work.’ Another challenge is business travel (about once a month) sometimes involving an early start and late return, other times requiring an overnight stay. On these occasions she relies on friends and extended family to take care of the children. Although ideally she would like to find a suitable full-time childcare arrangement, the benefits of the current arrangement outweigh the disadvantages and Maria can see herself continuing in this mode at least until all the children are in school.

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Case Studies

72. On-call. even on holidays

One week into his summer holiday last year Michael got a call from his employer: there was a crisis at work and he was needed home. Together with wife Nora and their young s o n he cancelled the second week and they drove home. That is the measure of the man meticulous to a fault. Michael works as an IT consultant, mostly on client sites. Although contracted to work a 37.5 hour week, he typically puts in a lot more, leaving home at 07:OO and returning around 19:OO. in addition, for one week in six he is on call 24 hours of the day. He is provided with a company car, a mobile phone, a notebook computer, and has an ISDN line fbnded ai home. Part of his work involves report writing and presentations and increasingly, thanks to the mobile computing technology at his disposal. this work comes home with him in the evenings. From the family’s point of view there are positives and negatives to his work. On the one hand, the work is well paid, with overtime rates and a standby allowance and call-out fee for on-call weeks. On the other hand the hours he works limits his availability to the family - he generally does not see the children in the morning, and they are ready for bed when he returns. On the weeks he is on call, Nora, who looks after the children full-time, often takes them to her mother’s. She finds her husband is totally absorbed during his oncall week, making the day with two young children very long. Michael is highly regarded at work, for his knowledge of the computer system. As a result he can be called at home even when not officially on duty. ‘Because I have the notebook computer and the ISDN line and access to the system I can often be tom away from the family at night.’ The ISDN connection is in one of the bedrooms. and he uses this as his informal workspace, even when his son is asleep there! Any spare time is spent either working or with the family, with little time for other activities. ’Work,’ says Nora, ‘is his hobby.‘ Michael loves his job and does not see the long working hours as a problem. However, he does hope to add a more regular and formalised home working element to the job in the near hture, which should relieve some of the pressure, but otherwise he feels that its likely he will keep working in this manner for the foreseeable fiture.

Case Studies

195

73. Long road home for mother of four

Sarah used to be a city worker, travelling in from the suburbs each day, but since moving to a job closer to home she has been giving even more thought to her work-family balance, and now she is considering becoming self-employed and working from home. The commuting was very wearing: 16 kilometres into the city centre and back each day which often took a total of 2.5 hours. Sarah has been widowed for some time and she took up her present job very close to home to be there more for her family of young adults and a teenage school-goer. The benefits were immediate: the commute disappeared, her new employer offered flexitime, and the working week of 35 hours included just half days on Fridays. Her youngest son is still at school, and now she finds she can leave him there before work. She is home by 17:OO most evenings, and as well as being there more for the family, can develop her already active social life. A year on, she wants more. She would like the flexibility to reduce her working hours and to do her business consultancy work entirely from home on a freelance basis. She would use the extra time freed up to further develop the bonds with her children, who are all growing up and moving away quickly, and to take up a new hobby. At present she has a PC at home that is not connected to the Internet, but she is already imagining her home office. For a start she will no longer perch at a desk in her bedroom; she intends to add an additional room to the house as a dedicated office. In it she will have her own PC (with no more squabbling with the children over whose turn it is) connected to the Internet with e-mail, fix, and a scanner. Currently all five members of the family have their own mobile phone. Since she started working close to home in the last year, Sarah feels less tired and less stressed overall, mostly due to her reduction in commuting time. She hopes that by being able to control the type and flow of work when she starts working from home, she will further reduce the stress she experiences from her work. Working fiom home, she feels, will also make her domestic role easier: ‘dinners could become a more relaxed family time, rather than just rushing to put anythmg together and eating it fast. Also there would not be as much b s l e around the other household jobs.’ In particular, though, working at home will mean that she can be there for her teenager after school and in the evenings.

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Case Studies

74. Teleworking from home continues to provide the solution

When the children were small Roberta thought teleworking h m home would be a temporary arrangement. Now that they are teenagers, it’s become a way of life and she finds it is becoming helpful as her care responsibilities begin to shift towards her elderly parents. Roberta, now in her late ~ O ’ S ,once worked a conventional nine to five job, but ten years ago, when her c h i l h were three and five she recalls that she ‘was becoming hysterical’, such were the demands of juggling home and work life. Her compromise was to surrender her h l l employment status and to work on a contract basis in her design profession. A decade later she has two steady clients, one of whom expects her to work fiom his office, the other prefers that she works from home. It’s an ideal balance, given the other demands on her time. Roberta’s home working has become so established that the family has extended the house to expand the home office. The home office has a powerful desktop computer, scanner and, of course, an Internet connection. The workstation must be upgraded at least every two years to keep pace with technological developments. This she pays for herself, claiming, ‘there have been years in which I spent more [onequipment] than I earned’. Her partner Filippo’sjob means that he is gone early in the morning and back late, often carrying work under his arms. On top of this he also works Saturdays and one or two Sundays a month. His weekly business travel compounds a situation in which he acknowledges he makes very little contribution to the domestic chores, helping ‘only if forced to do so’. He thinks that Roberta’sworking tiom home may have been a contributory factor: ‘I honestly t h i i my wife’s work organisation has determined my progressive estrangement from responsibilities’! On the other hand his mother offers her services as a daily cleaner to the over-stretched family. Roberta tries to organise her working week in a way that best balances the demands of her clients and the m e of her children and her parents. Her work commitment of between twenty-five and thirty hours per week, about half worked h m home, gives her much of the flexibility she needs although there are times when she has to work h m the office and make alternative arrangements for the children. Roberta works intensely when she can so that she can be more available when the children are around. When she has to work when they are there she tries to communicate her availability to them. Although instability in terms of work continuity and income is a constant feature of her work arrangement, Roberta is happy with things overall and sees herself continuing in this way indefinitely.

Case Studies

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75. Working round the clock Alberto’s working hours are so unusual he cannot manage to see fiiends much anymore, he has given up his hobbies, and there are days he hardly sees his children. Both Alberto and his partner are in their late 20’s. The company operates in the global, %-hour, year-round world of financial services. His work involves maintaining and upgrading the company’s information system, with shifts and a need for one member of the team permanently on call. Alberto and his team provide daytime technical support to the IT systems and their users, and run night time back office and system maintenance procedures. The team works while the users, and the rest of us, sleep. Three days a week Alberto works more or less conventional oflice hours and two days he works a scheduled later shift from 13:30 to 22:OO. Ten days a month he is on call from 22:OO; one Saturday in three he must go in to the office to complete procedural activities; and one Sunday a month he must be available on call. On a ‘conventional’ day he typically takes work home too on his laptop computer. The impacts of being on call vary depending on whether one is first or second in line, with the second in line only disturbed if the first is not available, so there are nights when Alberto is not disturbed at home. However he takes pride in his work and insists on being called by more junior staff should an issue arise, on the assumption that he can probably troubleshoot over the telephone and prevent someone having to go into the office. Partner Rossana, currently on maternity leave after the birth of their second child, is responsible for all the domestic work, just as she has been since they got married. Her parents help out and she is quite satisfied with the domestic arrangement, though she would like to see her husband more. This leaves Alberto free for the job that he loves. ‘Within my type of job you can’t possibly think of stopping for one second’. When he is not working he is thinking about it. The downside is the very limited time for family life. Although work-family balance is definitely skewed towards work, Alberto feels valued by his company and fulfilled by the work. His partner Rosanna would prefer more balance but feels that it is a ‘necessary sacrifice’ to meet the family’scurrent financial needs.

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Case Studies

76. eWorking gives flexibility for preferred lifestyle

You could call his lifestyle ‘irregular’ or you could call it ‘flexible’, but freelance consultant Mario has a different word for it - ‘perfection’. ‘I‘m totally happy. I wish it could go on for another ten years.’ And his partner Fiorella agrees. A middle-aged professional couple, who are both in their late ~ O ’ Swith , no children and no caring responsibilities, Mario and Fiorella are f’ree to choose the lifestyle they prefer. Socially that means being together as a couple as much as possible and socialising widely. Professionally she has a highly responsible managerial role in a large organisation, while he favours portfolio working as a freelance consultant. Mario works on the move, at home and in clients‘ offices on short duration contracts. One week he might be fully committed, the next be able to take the week off. And this is exactly how he likes it, ‘to me routine is the cause of stress. This work style is interesting and not repetitive’. As a hired trouble-shooter he provides support to consultancy teams that are already in place. Much of his work is carried out alone: ’I choose to work alone. I try to work fiom home as much as possible as I like being on my own‘. The lack of predictability inevitably leads to some compromises and Mario has found hobbies and friendships can suffer. If you cannot make football training regularly then you lose your place on the team. Similarly friends can get fed up with someone who cannot see them for months then turns up every day for a week. An attempt he made to become more active in the local community didn’t work out due to his inability to meet the regular commitment. Mario does try to keep things in balance as much as possible, though. For example. he rejects the suggestion that on-line shopping might make more time for his work. ‘I do not want to get to the point where I have no time to do the shopping. That would be too bad. If I get to that point I will stop working.‘

Case Studies

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77. Road warrior works wire-free from the car Francesco, a man in his early SO’S, uses his car as an additional office; for each client he has a briefcase of files in the boot. The car bristles with communications: two mobile phones, PowerMac laptop, and wireless Internet, the paraphernalia of the road warrior. His dream is one day to equip a passenger van with all the required computer and satellite communications and work from there all the time. Partner Rosanna, also early SO’S, might have something to say about this, though. She is not so happy about the time he spends working away from home, usually three days a week, and would prefer that he dedicated all that technology to working smarter rather than harder. Francesco works as a technology consultant and his work often takes him out on the road visiting clients. The fact that he prefers living in a small rural village more than 200 km from his major customers adds to the amount of travel. To make this arrangement work he keeps an apartment in the city that doubles as an office and a pied a terre. The working week roughly divides in two. Mondays and Fridays he works from his consultancy practice near home; the other days are spent on the road, either at his home ofice in the city, or visiting clients and working from his car. Francesco tries never to bring work home, but those briefcases are always in the car, and he admits that at busy periods he finds himself physically present in the home but mentally somewhere else. When he’s at home he becomes an energetic family man, taking all the responsibility for the school-going children, and indulging in cooking extravaganzas at weekends preparing and freezing food for the week ahead (not all of which gets eaten!). Cooking is his hobby and relaxation, although not always fully appreciated by the rest of the family! A partner who is fully absent three days a week, and energetically contributing for the rest of the week can upset the balance in the household. Rosanna also works full-time in a responsible job. Like her husband, she works as a consultant for a single client, the so-called continuous, coordinated cooperation (co.co.co) and spends approximately half of her time working from home. She experiences some constraints on her working pattern because of Francesco’s travel, finding herself spreading her 35-40 working hours into every comer of the week, including Saturdays and Sundays. She refuses additional work commitments after 4pm each afternoon, allowing her to focus on the family. The family has a cleaning lady and a child-minder for their two school-going children. Overall the couple see both benefits and disadvantages to their working arrangements. ‘There is no killing routine,’ says Francesco, ‘instead we have variability and availability.’ While generally positive about her partner’s work style Rosanna sees it somewhat differently, ‘when he is here he does a lot, but his constant absences are very tiring because everything is on my shoulders.’

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Case Studies

78. Flexible work necessary for now but security is the objective

Bernadette, a woman in her mid ~ O ’ S works , as a self-employed consultant on contract to one agency. Her employment status is the norm in a sector that does not favour permanent full-time staff. Despite the insecurity of self-employment, Bernadette appreciates its flexibility and autonomy. Being divorced and having a school-going daughter, with no extended family for support and not being able to afford childcare, she says ‘it is very good for me, because it is consistent with my family commitments.‘ She works a 30-35 hour week, mostly at a customer’s premises but when necessary she can work from home which she does for about twenty per cent of her working week. When she does work from home she arranges a study comer in the entry hall to her flat, with a small desk and a notebook computer lent by her main customer. She has a connection to the Internet via ISDN. The absence of a dedicated home office means it can sometimes be difficult to keep work and family life separate. What flexibility she has in the job Bernadette uses for the benefit of her daughter and she feel less guilty and less h t r a t e d by knowing that she can be there for her. On the other hand the constant single-handed care combined with her work means she has little or no time for herself. Like a lot of self-employed people Bernadette often weighs up the relative merits of the flexibility she has compared with the security of full-time regular employment. For now flexibility wins, but for the sake of her family’s longer term future she could be tempted by an offer of a permanent position.

Case Studies

20 1

79. It seemed a good idea at the time

After twenty years loyal service to her public sector employer Danielle, a woman in he1 early ~ O ’ S decided , to try out the organisation’s teleworking scheme. With three teenage children, a 70 minute commute to work and a clerical computer-oriented job, it seemed a good idea to try working fiom home. Work could be more efficient and she could be there more for the family. Two years later things have not turned out quite as expected. Danielle’s organisation provides a lot of family-friendly supports and other benefits to its staff. A couple of years ago, when she took up the opportunity to participate in theix telework scheme, she set up a home office upstairs away from the hustle and bustle of the family life during the day. Working three days at home and two in the office, Danielle hoped to be there more for her family and still get the benefits of seeing colleagues and friends in the office on the other two days. Her employer provided a dedicated ISDN line, computer equipment, a desk and a chair, all conforming to working environment and security regulations. When working at home she generally keeps approximately to conventional hours. although occasionally she might work into the evening or even late into the night. Without the distractions of the office she has found she can get the same work done much faster. On the downside, however, Danielle has found that being absent fiom the office for three days a week can have negative social consequences. ‘You miss the small everyday interactions with your colleagues, the confidences; we talk much less now when I go to the office, as I have too little time ... we were like a family.’ Things did not turn out quite as expected on the family side, either. For one thing, now that she was ‘at home’ the rest of the family left a lot more of the domestic work to her. Husband Ferdinand, mid ~ O ’ S admits,‘I , used to be home before her so the first jobs in the home were up to me. Now I cook less, and I have more time to myself.’ He still likes to shop, though, but definitely not by the Internet. ‘Don’t even suggest it, I prefer to do my shopping in the shops - my father was a greengrocer.’ The teenage girls used to cook too, but they gave this up when their mother became more present, and began doing less housework. The girls also started to grumble a bit about their mother being around so much. Now practically independent young adults they feel she is cramping their style when they come home from school with friends. ‘They would like me to go back to full-time working in the office,’ says Danielle, ‘they got used to not having their mother at home until 18:OO and they now regard this new arrangement as being invasive and limiting to their autonomy.’ She feels, though, that her presence bonds her with her children, as well as acting as a deterrent to any mischief?

202

C(ise Studies

80. Teleworking was ‘a gift from God‘

Tiziana, a woman in her mid 40’s embodies the old saying, ’a woman’s work is never done‘. Divorced from her husband for many years she works full-time, raises two teenage sons, and cares for her elderly father. Despite her work and care commitments she neither asks nor expects a greater contribution from her teenage sons who, like their peers, expect to be looked after rather than to bear any share of the household chores. Teleworking helps her to juggle all her commitments. Tiziana has worked for twenty years for the same employer. Up until quite recently she worked a conventional nine to five ofice routine, but when her employer set up a teleworking scheme she seized the opportunity. Now she works in a well structured arrangement, with two days at the ofice, a twenty minute commute away, and two days at home, both working more or less conventional hours. Working hours are formalid under a t’ull time, 36 hour contract, giving her full employee status and rights. and each week she submits a home working report. Her work place at home is in a comer in the sitting room which she also uses as her bedroom (she sleeps on the sofa bed). For home-based work, she has been provided with all the computer equipment (online PC, Internet, dedicated ISDN line and printer) as well as the chair and the desk she personally chose to match the existing furnishings. ‘What 1 actually needed was a part-time job, but I could not afford it economically; to me teleworking was a gift h m God.’ That ‘gift’ enables her to care for her elderly father and be there for her children where previously she would wony about them home alone at the end of each working day.

Case Studies

203

8 1. Guilt trip replaces trip to work Ester, in her late ~ O ’ S ,is a technical specialist holding a senior role in a male dominated environment. At home she has two school-going children and a two-year-old. She thought that teleworking from home might help improve work-family balance, now she is not so sure. She feels the house is a mess, her colleagues are resentful, she is being overloaded with work - and that it must all be her fault! Her new arrangement has reduced her working hours and also allows her to spend two days a week at home, during which she must be available for two hours each day at specific times. The arrangement is a recent one, and she has yet to find the optimal working times at home, though she tends to work when there is no one around or while the children are sleeping. Rather than set up a home office in the attic Ester opted to work in the living room. She finds it distressing to work in such close proximity to the inevitable disarray caused by young children. ‘When I used to go out to work I did not see the mess. If the house was untidy I just closed the door behind and five minutes later I forgot about it. Now I cannot work if the kitchen is untidy.’ At home, she is equipped with on line PC, ISDN line, printer, and not yet activated Intranet connection to her employer’s location and e-mail facilities. All the equipment, including the desk, was supplied by her employer who also provides maintenance and pays for the management costs. The difficulties at home were compounded by changes to her childcare arrangements. Initially she tried caring for her two year old and working at the same time, with inevitable consequences. ‘The first month was terrible. Now thanks to my sister-in-law, tired of seeing me desperate, his grandparents have come back and keep him until midday.’ Her husband Piero works in the neighbourhood but keeps his work life and family life entirely separate, ‘either my wife stays at home or I call my mother’. He’s even given up his hard-won though admittedly very limited contribution to the domestic chores. As he says himself, ‘the days she works from home it is as if she does not work. It’s better, it calms me down, she manages to do more things about the house.’ Although her employers arranged quite comprehensive training in preparation for teleworking, she found it took time to put some of this into practice. Now she feels she has become more efficient but this is something of a double-edged sword. ‘At home I take less time to do the same things, but I am constantly afraid that I am not doing enough.’ Reactions of colleagues contribute to the anxiety. ‘There is a feeling amongst colleagues that people who telework do nothing, even though everybody says that working from home is more effective.’ Paradoxically, she feels that her efficiency is being exploited with more and more work being passed on to her because of understaffing at the workplace.

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Case Studies

82. Telework provides a key to the ‘golden cage‘ ofcare Caring for a severely disabled child has been called the ‘golden cage’ of care. For Eugenia mother of Fausto, a boy with severe disabilities, that’s exactly how she felt: sitting at work worrying about her son, or caring for her son and worrying about work. During her 9C minutes commute to work she had time to worry about both. On his good days, Fausto goes to kindergarten where he gets the intensive and quality care he needs. On his bad days, and there are many, when he might be ill with an infection he requires constant nursing care at home. One day a week he must be taken to therapy sessions and this may soon involve a second day as well. Yet Eugenia and her husband Giorgio (both in their mid 30’s) both manage to hold down important jobs. They both work in the public sector, she part-time in a technical area and he full-time as an IT professional. The system they have devised, with the Wl co-opemtion 01 their employers, has enabled them to remain productive at work while caring for their son. At least one parent is at home every day of the week and they organise their work-times around their son’s needs. Eugenia works in the office three days and at home on the othex two. Giorgio works the same regime in reverse. Their employers supplied desk, chair, desktop computer, laptop computer, ISDN and Internet connections all conforming to health and safety regulations. The benefits for work-family benefit were immediate. The absence of commutes alone gave them back three hours in each day and Eugenia was available to attend kindergarten at mealtimes to help Fausto. On a personal level she finds that she has become less stressed and more tranquil. ‘I am much less tired, and my work is more efficient, I am no longer tired after the 3 hour train journey each day. I can sleep more. I am more serene, I am much more available and less anxious.’ Eugenia always works alone from the office in the basement of her house and when she wants to work elsewhere in the house, such as the living room, then she uses the laptop. On the downside, though Eugenia has found that the combination of working f k m home and its associated down-shifting to part-time hours has negatively &ected some aspects of her WorWcareer. ‘Teamwork is built on a series of last minute choices and decisions. It becomes tiresome constantly to have to be updated if you are working part-time ... I have started to have a more marginal role in my working group ... with the part-time and the family situation my prospects for professional progression have deteriorated.‘ For Giorgio‘spart, he admits that he did struggle to establish the boundaries between family and work. ‘Learning self-discipline was hard at first. I now estimate the amount of work I get done at the office and make sure that I do the same amount at home. My wife helps me not to get too absorbed and neglect my family duties!’

Case Studies

205

83. Telework without limits means partner still lonely Aldo, in his mid ~ O ’ Sworks , hard. He never stops thinking about work, and now that he can work from home his mind never switches off. His wife Silvia, in her mid ~ O ’ S does , not know whether he is ‘hopeless or if it is just telework!’ Time will tell, but if the situation does not improve he plans to give up and go back to the office. Aldo’s responsible administrative public sector job involves a lot of site visiting and reporting. The role offers a lot of flexibility; as long as he is in the ofice once a week it’s entirely up to him how he organizes the rest of his week. When his employer set up a telework scheme the couple felt that it would be good if Aldo could work from home more. It would be company for Silvia now that their family was grown and left home. Besides, they had already converted a spare bedroom into an office/study. Despite attending an employer-funded telework training course covering all the technological and psychological tips and tricks he would need to know, from the start things did not go very well. ‘It’s incredible the time telework steals from you: hours fly by and you have done very little of what you had planned. It is hard to believe but contact with Silvia such as lunch and dinner have diminished, and I feel I am letting her down.’ Aldo’s difficulty is in drawing a boundary between work and family. ‘My mind works all the time. In the evening if something crops up I go to the study and turn on the computer. It is difficult to set up limits, time goes by and you do not realise, and you grow old.’ On top of this Aldo must connect in to the central office database for his work and having to rely on conventional modem communications means ‘connection times with the central office are so slow, time passes, dinner gets delayed and so it goes on.’ Unexpectedly he has found that social contacts with colleagues have improved if anything since taking up working from home. Setting up the teleworking arrangement helped clarify what was previously a fairly peripatetic role within the team and he also has an employer-funded telephone for work. Now that he and his colleagues know who is paying the bill they talk more! Nor is it all doom and gloom when you talk to Silvia. She admits to sometimes being lonelier than before but at the same time says that she is happy her husband is at home more and travels less. She admires the way he has gained the skills to do the job, so much so that his team members use him as a reference point and unofficial help desk, and overall she feels that despite his complaints he is more satisfied with his job. If only he could organize himself better and learn to switch off!

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Case Studies

84. Alessia saves her job, but employer could do more

When Alessia’s company was rationalised a lot of regional ofEces were closed. For Alessia, now in her late ~ O ’ S who , worked alone as the company representative in her region, this meant her job was gone unless she was prepared to work from home. She seized the opportunity. She didn’t need to continue working as her husband Matt, in his mid ~ O ’ S is , a senior executive and his income ensures that they and their teenage daughter are very comfortably off. However, Matt’s work demands do mean that family responsibilities fall to Alessia supported by paid help with cleaning and ironing, and some childminding. But for Alessia ’work is good for one’s spirit, it is important to my personal fblfilment, and it in turn contributes to my family as it makes me a better person’. She took the initiative and converted what was to have been her daughter’s den into an office. From what they already had in the house and what was now redundant from the closed office, there was more than enough technology available to equip the home office. With the addition of an ISDN connection, for which she pays herself. she was up and running Once a week Alessia reports in person to the regional headquarters, but the rest of the week she is free to organise herself, typically spending half of her working week at home and the rest visiting customers. In essence her work routine remains unchanged except she now does the office component from home. Although her employer was facilitative of Alessia’s teleworkkg choice, she feels that more support would be helpful. ‘To work this way could be an excellent opportunity but you need training to make the best of it. Without proper support you are too far away from your company to understand and get the best from the technology.’ She is a bit concerned too that teleworking may reduce her career prospects - out of sight can mean out of mind, and she fears that colleagues may regard her as a ‘non-working’ employee because she is not physically there. Also, despite strong encouragement from her manager she does feel isolated fiom colleagues and it can be lonely. Apart from enabling her to keep her job, the change has made Alessia more present for her daughter, although this can be something of a double-edged sword! Whilst she can now do the school runs and accompany her to after school activities, her daughter sometimes resents her being around too much. ‘Once she’d die if she did not see me, now she has too much of me.’

Case Studies

207

85. He’s more effective at work but still can’t tidy up the living room

Despite living only ten minutes from the office Fabio, in his late ~ O ’ S opted , to work from home as a productivity experiment. Not only did he become more productive, but the subsequent arrival of a new baby meant that he was able to contribute more to, and get more from, his family. According to his partner Alba, who is in her early 30’s and works as a consultant, if only he could learn to tidy up the situation would be ideal! Only managers are allowed to telework at Fabio’s company. So when he was offered the opportunity he accepted the challenge as a sort of reward. Today he works a 50 hour week, ten per cent in the office, and the rest split between home and visiting clients. He would make around two business trips a week, often involving overnight stays. At home Fabio set himself up in the living room, where he has created a sort of work studio. His presence in the living space affects both family and work. ‘He is always in the way,’ says Alba, ‘he is always at home and he’s untidy; it would be fine if we had an extra room with a good door to lock him in. There are times he spends the whole day inside without going out for a second. He would need to get out and get a bit of fresh air.’ Their daughter is now three, and well able to exercise her opinions and her lungs when Daddy is talking to clients on the telephone. Fabio sometimes gets frustrated, but since it is he who is invading her space he cannot really complain. Alba could work from home but doesn’t. She too lives close to the office but prefers to get out of the home, not least because she finds it difficult to separate work and family responsibility. However she is absolutely clear that family comes first for her: ‘Career and family are not compatible so you end up choosing a job that enables you to make an economic contribution as well as being interesting, but family comes first.’ The couple employ a cleaner for eight hours per week and get some childcare assistance from Fabio’s mother, who enjoys seeing her son more now that he works from home. The major impact though is on Fabio’s work. He feels he is more effective and productive, is enjoying his work more and is less stressed. He tries to keep work and family strictly separate, imposing rules on himself and the family that are hard to maintain from his perch in the living room. He also finds he cannot switch off, constantly trying to do more, rather than to do the same work better: ‘you bring the work home and you just cannot get away from it. It is a big risk, you get carried away, you want to get faster. You should slow down but you are too tense: your daughter wants the attention, you want to give it to her, but work is calling you.. .’

208

Case Studies

86. Working from home doesn’t mean the breakfast dishes get done When Tony, a man in his late ~ O ’ S asked , his employers for overtime to be able to pay foi childcare they suggested that he consider working fiom home instead. The tather of one jumped at the opportunity - it meant he could spend more time with his son and his wife Stephanie could continue working full-time. While the arrangement has genedly been a success the family soon found that having a stay-at-home working husband didn’t mean the breakfast dishes got done! Tony’s clerical job is almost entirely desk-based. At present he works standard hours in the oflice two days per week; and three days a week at home, starting and finishing aboul an hour earlier. He must be available and contactable at home two hours each morning and one hour in the afternoons. These are agreed with his manager and are modifiable by agreement. Although the work gets done, Tony has some concern about the attitudes of others. On office days he consciously puts effort into keeping in touch with co-workers and doing ‘public relations’ so that everyone knows how much he does and that he has real commitment to his work. He has also visited his neighbours to put them in the picture in case they thought he had lost his job. A day at the office also presents other challenges. ‘When I work at home I rarely speak. I have realised that I am no longer used to talking. When I go to the office and there is a work discussion with colleagues, I won get fed up - I don’t know what to say.’ Tony feels that a video link to the office might help - it could be used for formal meetings as well as in a social context. Home working also has its own complications. ‘It is more stressful,’ he claims. ‘When I am in the office I have to work and that is it. When I am at home it’s like a puzzle: I have to work, pick up the child, cook ...The most stressful time is when my son is back from school: I have to finish work and he wants to play with the keyboard.’ It is a puzzle that wife Stephanie, in her early 40’s feels he has yet to solve. She works full time in the local area. ‘When I come home dead tired after ten hours of work and I see all the mess they have made I cannot but get angry. I hate housework, as soon as you have finished you have to start again. Work instead is very gratifling, productive. Since he has become a teleworker very little has changed.’ Despite their various misgivings, both Tony and Stephanie feel that teleworking is right for now. Perhaps when their son is a little older and more independent Tony will go back to the office but for now he intends to continue the arrangement.

Case Studies

209

87. Together again after all these years

A quiet revolution has overtaken the household. After years of seeing each other at weekends, and living apart during the working week suddenly Giovanni and Grazia find themselves thrown together in the same home study as teleworkers. It was a shock to the system, and they don’t always get on, but in their own words, ‘we have finally become a normal couple‘. Both Giovanni and Grazia are scientists, in their 40’s with no children. Work predominates in their lives and over time they allowed a situation to develop where Giovanni rented an apartment near his work, which would otherwise have been a two-hour commute, during the working week. He developed a second life centred outside the home and even admits that, ‘with my wife it was like we weren’t married any longer’. Three years ago everything changed. His employer initiated a telework project, and feeling out of balance Giovanni pushed himself forward and was one of those selected to work three days fkom home. He let the apartment go and equipped his home oflice so he could do his job efficiently from home. His company paid for a PC with ISDN and Internet connection, a chair, and a filing cabinet, though bizarrely he had to buy a desk for himself. When not working in the field he spends Mondays and Thursdays in the office and the rest of the week at home. Although also a scientist, Grazia has a more back office role spending 90 per cent of her time at her desk at home. Now the two meet &r breakfast at adjacent desks, almost in a collegial atmosphere. It was a strain at first, but they gradually came to respect each other professionally. ‘There is an exchange of knowledge and an interaction between us even if at times our discussions tend to degenerate!’, says Giovanni. Their life as a couple gradually re-established itself too. ‘I used to go out to the gym, go w t every night,’ recalls Giovanni, ‘because I was alone. Now I have found the pleasure of being at home. We are gradually finding a balance as we move from one extreme to the other.’ Some things never change though and Grazia remains mostly responsible for the household management despite Giovanni’sincreased presence. ‘He helps me every now and then,’ she laughs. Because they do the same job it can become difficult to separate work and family. Grazia is better at this but Giovanni can get carried away: ‘I do a job I like, and it was difficult to stop, particularly in the beginning.’ Work is often in the forefront of his mind sven when they have closed the study door at the end of the day. In thinking about the longer term, Giovanni feels that teleworkers are discriminated eainst when it comes to promotion. ‘Middle management employees cannot work from home, so if I want to advance in my career I will have to consider going back to the ofice.’ But for now their intention is to make the most of it while they can, enjoying being a normal couple.

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Case Studies

88. Family find father‘s work commitment too much to bear

Lisa keeps up contact with their extended family; Lisa manages the household; Lisa looks after their young school-going son; Lisa gets involved with the local community. And Paul? He works. and works and works. In fact he works so hard that his family don’t expect anything from him anymore except his salary. ‘We no longer have any certainties about his presence,’ complains Lisa. ‘so we tend not to make commitments or arrangements or plan holidays, etc.’ It has to be that way, argues Paul. He has started his own IT business, and as with any new company the start-up phase is the most intense. Perhaps in a few years he will be able to downshifi a little. But he does acknowledge that he is taking time and opportunity h m his wife: ‘because of my absence she doesn’t have the chance to develop the activities she is interested in. I think I leave her alone too long.’ Paul is in his late 30’s and Lisa in her early 40’s. Previously Paul worked as an employee with scheduled working hours. Seeing an opportunity he set up in business, developing, installing and maintaining software. He says he works a 50 hour week, mostly from the company office, but also on site, and at home; when you look more closely however it seems that many more hours may go unaccounted. The working day is 08:30 to 19:OO; he almost always works Saturdays, and less frequently Sundays; and business travel with overnight stays is a regular feature of the job. The most pernicious element of the job though is the on-call support, provided on a 24 hour basis, but mainly between 19:OO and 23:OO. The family has a studio ofice in their apartment. equipped with PC, Internet and Fax. Here Paul takes phone calls, and logs on to clients’ computer systems to resolve problems. He loves the job and growing the business. ’I come home in a good mood, and this allows me to achieve more quality time with the family.‘ They don’t quite see it the Same way. Lisa works part-time in a job that gives her little satisfaction; she would prefer to return to her former career. but has no time. Francis, their son, doesn’t understand why his dad has to work so much. He goes to nursery school between 08:OO and 16:OO and is picked up, either by his mother or his grandparents and is getting ready for bed when his daddy comes home. Nevertheless Paul remains convinced his work arrangements suit the family. He works hard for them and has given up his own personal life and hobbies to &e time for them. ’I’ve chosen to give everything up except family and work, because I do not want to steal time from the family.’

Case Studies

21 I

89. Teleworking from home is mixed blessing for disabled man

A year ago Simon, in his early SO’S, had an accident and lost the use of his legs. Previously an energetic worker in journalisdpublicity, he found himself confined to home and feared he would be unable to work again. His employer responded well, switching him to a more desk bound role that he could do 100 per cent at home. For Simon it has been a mixed blessing. Simon lives with his elderly mother. She has a heart condition and requires some care and support. They live in a relatively large apartment, and so were able to convert one room to be a dedicated studio. His employer supplied all the equipment: a PC, Internet, ISDN, printer, desk and chair. All maintenance and management costs are also covered by the company. Working hours are not strictly scheduled, but somewhere between the hours of 08:OO and 19:OO he would typically work 36 hours per week. His manager assigns Simon work each day via phone and e-mail. This involves background research and return of a final press release or report, again via e-mail. Now he only rarely is required to go in to the oflice, in fact only twice in the last year. The social aspects that were typical in his job are now absent. He has no contact with colleagues and little personal interaction with his boss (mostly they communicate via email). Not least he misses the ‘work experience’, those little nuances that can make someone’s work unique as well as enriching their lives with information and news that cannot be acquired otherwise. Professionally, the fact that he can only do only background research, rather than gathering information directly is disappointing. His mother can sometimes be a bit of a nuisance too! Not appreciating that her son is at work when he is in the studio, she wanders in and out of the work environment at will, passing comment on what he is doing. ‘Before she would never phone me in the office, now she comes in whenever she wants. She also tends to interfere with what I am working on.’ In the main though he appreciates how technology has enabled him to continue working. He has more time to dedicate to his hobbies, and can give more time to the care of his mother. Thankfully, too, Simon’s condition is improving and as soon as he regains partial mobility he knows where he is headed - back to the oflice.

When her partner left soon after the birth of their daughter, Domitilla, now in her late 30’s. was left to fend for herself. Were it not for the support of her parents and the local community she is not sure she would have been able to cope. ‘The fact that my parents live upstairs facilitates many things. Also living in a neighbourhood where you are known since you were a child ensures strong co-operation.’ For most of the time since her daughter was bom, Domitilla has worked in a variety 01 jobs in a local authority, and more recently started to work in its call centre. Her role involves acting as the first reference point for people requiring information on public services. She might provide the information herself using an on-line reference database or divert the caller on to a specialist department. The ‘social usefulness’ of her job compared to her previous role has enhanced her job satisfaction, though she and other call centre operators report stress from the nature of some of the calls they receive. ‘I have the feeling that I am useful to them. A machine could have carried out the job I performed before. You come across very 1and complex situations, and if I am unable to give an answer I feel a sense of failure inside me.‘ Domitilla’s work pattern is structured in six &hour shifts, arranged in a pattern of early and late ones across a three-week cycle. During the three weeks, she gets a day off each week, fmt a Friday, then a Sunday, and then a Wednesday. The shift pattern suits: ‘after all. I spend half the day at home so tell me which other working mother is so present at home? You must consider that out of seven working days only three are days that I work in the afternoon.’ Although the condensed six hour shift is appealing, the variable day off can be more of a nuisance. The short working day allows her to be more available for her daughter, and on the days she cannot be there after school her parents switch in. As well as being able to attend to her daughter‘s needs, Domitilla say she also has more freedom for her self. ‘I can walk, go to the gym, do the shopping, perhaps I have reached a balanced situation ... certainly life doesn’t all depend on work ... I have a secure job which puts me in contact with people. which makes me feel useful, and which leaves me a lot of spare time.’

Case Studies

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9 1. Switch to call centre brings both security and disruption

The only time of the day the family is gathered together is at meal times and public ~holidays,complains Ursula, a young woman in her early 30’s. But it is worse than that, for 1 when you look at her shift system you see that she frequently misses meal times too! She feels it most in the early hours of the morning when she slips into bed at 0 1:00 knowing her Ihusband, who is the same age as herself, has eaten out, and her baby daughter has been asleep for hours. Until two years ago,Ursula worked for a small company where there was relatively little job security. She and her husband Pino (a self-employed salesman) wanted to start a family, and feeling the lack ofjob security and company benefits, she decided to change ,jobs first. She soon found a position in the call centre of a large corporation, answering queries on their toll-free customer service line. In the move from small company to large corporate she secured a permanent employment contract and a family friendly environment. ‘They may not have family dedicated structures, but they do grant authorisation to leave early or leave of absence, and are very concerned with employee needs.’ A SW proposal for an on-site crkhe has just been submitted, and they are confident the company will agree. Also, there is an informal arrangement allowing mothers to leave their mobile phones switched on at work. Although the job is not as stimulating as before, the change gave Ursula most of what she wanted - a reasonable income, a securejob, employee centric management, and a young dynamic work environment. After she had her child, she returned to work quickly because the family needed the income. Ursula works shifts, eight hours each day, with two days off each week. Shifts are organised on a three shift rota - 08:OO-16:OO; 12:OO-2O:OO; and 16:OO24:OO - with the call centre staffed on Sundays and Public Holidays too. Before the birth of their daughter Pino operated autonomously. Ursula was entirely responsible for the household and he turned up whenever he was finished work, usually after 20:OO. After her birth he changed his working pattern to take responsibility for getting her ready in the morning to be left to her grandparents (Ursula’s parents), and picking her up fiom thm in the evening. Pino positively embraced his new role as father and this helped overcome some initial fictions caused by the adjustment in family responsibilities. Ursula appreciates being able to count on a definite timetable from her husband, which just was not possible before. She and Pino do not see a lot of each other, but paradoxically she feels she is around the home more because of the shift system, and feels less stressed about work. Therefore she intends to stick with the call centre job for the foreseeable hture. ‘When I am at home nothing else exists, work is on another planet. If I had continued with my old job I would have found it more difficult to be organised and switch off from work. I used to bring all my work worries home inside myself.’

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Case Studies

92. Couple rebalances their lives to make space for parents

One kilometre beyond the village in the middle of rolling fields sits the villa with its large garden, which has matured over the years to create an oasis of calm. It has been home to Marco and Lucia, a couple in their mid ~ O ’ S for , many years but three years ago they invited her parents to make it their home too. Though independent, the older couple were increasingly in need of support and it made sense that Marco and Lucia, who have no children, should be there to look after them. At the same time Marco changed to freelance work, and set up an office from home, to be more available. He works as an IT specialist, collaborating with other self-employed specialists to provide a full design, development and maintenance service. The work can mostly be done via e-mail and telephone, but there are also the inevitable client marketing meetings. Despite the home office, he still likes to get out to work too, and rents a small office in a nearby town, to which he ‘escapes’ in the mornings, or when Lucia is at home during the day. The villa is large enough to create private living space for the elderly couple, as well as ofices for both Marco and Lucia Marco’s office is equipped with two computers, printer, fax machine, ISDN line for the computers and a voice line. Though Lucia mainly works outside of the home in her personnel job, she maintains a second office in the home, with PC, modem and printer. Here she has installed a hi-fi system, which is almost always switched on when she works from home: background music relaxes her. It is almost the perfect set-up, except for one thing: Lucia’s parents! They just don’t seem to understand that Marco is at work, and burst in on him at unexpected times with measonable demands! ‘You can easily get increased stress or tense situations by not respecting someone’s working space,’ he hints. ‘For instance, if I am on the phone with a customer and my in-laws need something they just burst into the morn without thinking that they might be disturbing me.’ Lucia agrees that the set-up can cause strain. ‘He has been less stressed since working from home, but the continual swapping between work and family can be a strain.’ Nevertheless, Marco is pleased to be able to provide support for the elderly couple at this stage in their lives, even changing his schedule to be sure to be working at home when his father in-law is ill. The couple knows that as their parents get older the burden of care will increase, but they feel they have the structures in place in their lives now to cope.

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Case Studies

21s

93. Dream abandoned, but new role creates the space for caring

Sara, in her mid ~ O ’ S , has abandoned her ambition to develop a career in teaching and settled for working in a call centre. After she married, they moved in with her mother, who suffers from a progressive illness, and within a year she took a job as a telephone operator in the call centre. The uncertainties of irregular teaching positions was replaced with financial security and a work pattern that facilitates her caring role. Her mother has problems with her vision that make it difficult to get around indoors, and almost impossible to go out on her own. Sara and her aunt act as her seeing companions. Sara works a 40 hour week in the call centre. It operates on a three shift system: an early, an afternoon and a late (08:OO-16:OO; 12:OO-2O:OO; and 16:OO-24:OO). She works Saturdays, and two Sundays per month, her two days off a week varying according to the shift pattern. The arrangement means that two weeks in every three she is there for her mother during the morning andor the afternoon. Being out at work has even improved Sara’s relationship with her mother. ‘Before we were both at home at lot and I tended to protect her too much; now she has her own operational space - the home.’ It might not be her dream job, and the shift working can be an annoyance, but the fact that it puts no emotional demands on her and that she can leave it behind each day creates the space for Sara to get on with the rest of her life.

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Case Studies

94. Shifts suit own needs and enables caring for father

Maurice, in his mid ~ O ’ Sworks , as a terminal operator in a data processing department. It places no significant demands on him. it pays well, and it is secure; and it allows him to be available to his sick father. Maurice and his father live together in a third-floor apartment. He works and his father keeps house with the help of a cleaner. However, his father’s bone disease restricts his mobility to inside the apartment. To go anywhere else is an ordeal that requires Maurice or Maurice’s brother to take him. This places significant demands on the young man, but his work operates on a shift pattern that leaves him available during the day. There are three shifts - 07:OO-1500; 15:00-23:00; and 2390-07:OO. Every day Maurice works a different shift, destroying any continuity in his week, and after working a night shift he gets a day off. The minimum time gap between two shifts is eight hours. Despite the pattern he does not feel it affects his health, though his sleep suffers during the day. There is some scope for flexibility and in the past he has been able to swap shifts when emergency situations have arisen for his father. Under these circumstances he would welcome some technology aid to alert him to a problem at home. Although the continual changing of shifts can be stressfbl, the work is not demanding and overall the arrangement suits him and his father’s needs well.

Case Studies

217

95. Call centre provides opportunity for eventual re-entry to work It seemed like a brief career break when Alexandra, now in her early ~ O ’ S decided , to take time off after the birth of her first child, but just when she began thinking about going back to work she became pregnant again and put off thoughts of work once more. In all thirteen years passed before she felt the boys, now teenagers, were old enough for her to think about going out to work once more. Those thirteen years spanned the IT and communications revolution. The world of work looked very different a generation on. Previously she had worked as a skilled operator in a manufacturing company. Had she wanted to return to this it would not have been possible, as most companies in the sector had relocated to low cost economies. Nor did she have the computer skills required in the new high tech environment. Eventually she found a job in a call centre, just minutes from home. It is a computerbased job, but primarily it is about talking to people. She works from a script on her PC, or looks up service information on a database. The work is undemanding but enjoyable. As for career prospects, ‘there were none before, there are none now!’ The call centre has a young mostly female workforce with a strong camaraderie. Although the company operates a three-shift pattern Alexandra asked, and was allowed, to be excused the night shift. As one of just a small number of full time operators among over forty staff with temporary contracts she was in a privileged position. At home Alexandra’s return to work was a minor, but significant event. Her husband, now in his mid 40’s’ works outside the home, coming home each evening around 19:30. The two boys are now quite independent teenagers. However they didn’t appreciate even the smallest change to their routines; today they eat one meal a day without their mother, and are expected to clean the dishes and tidy their rooms, something they never did before. Alexandra says, ‘I do nearly everything myself, they help now and again. It has always been like that.’ She wishes they would do more, they wish she was at home more so they could do less. Although work and family demands do not leave very much time for hobbies and interests, Alexandra expresses herself content, ‘I have more time for my family, I’m more satisfied and less tired.’

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Case Studies

96. Portfolio working provides escape route for bored civil servant

When Richard worked as a civil servant he felt it was like a prison sentence: sedentary. tedious, every day the same as the next. In the evenings, he did some work for private clients, and this proved to be his escape route. A client offered him a part-time job and this gave him the confidence to set up in a self-employed capacity as well. Today his three phones never stop ringing. He complains, but admits. that like Moliere, he wants ‘to die on the stage‘. He likes the work, the money is good, and his curiosity is satisfied. Richard is married to Renata. Both are in their mid 40’s and they have one teenage daughter. The family lives in an apartment in the suburbs of a large city. Adjacent, with an adjoining door, but also its own private entrance, is Richard’s studio ofice where he meets his clients. It is equipped with ISDN, telephone, fax, e-mail. and desktop computer. When on the move he uses a mobile phone and laptop. Twenty hours per week are spent at the offices of his part-time job, the rest at the studio. The working week is flexible, though in practice he has so many clients that sometimes he works from 08:00-21:00 without any break. He jokes that he has developed a schizophrenic relationship with his mobile phone, which he would keep switched on and under his pillow at night if he wasn’t forced to take a break fiom the professional world. His wife, Renata has a regular job outside the home. She is bemused by her husband, rushing from client to client, fiom the ofice, to the studio, to the apartment and back again, but she recognises he is happier. Only their daughter complains, as her dad is not so available to her now; they used to do many things together, now they are lucky to get to the cinema once a month. The couple do their best to keep work and f-mily separate. The home telephone numbers are not listed, and they use an answering machine to screen calls for the persistent clients who manage to call Richard at home. It’s a roller coaster but one they currently enjoy riding. Richard feels his new flexibility gives him great freedom and autonomy. He is growing professionally, and has contact with so many people and situations that satisfy his lively curiosity for new things.