Teleworking policies of organisations: the Dutch experience

The over-all picture concerning the diffusion of telework stemming from research undertaken in 2000 and 2001 is rather negative. Teleworking policies of organisations hardly go beyond the minimal definition that we used in analyzing Dutch surveys from these years (organisations offering the opportunity for teleworking and, if they were asked for, paid for the necessary facilities). The conclusion is not exaggerated that a large majority of Dutch organisations are playing a waiting game on teleworking, even in sectors where jobs show a rather high ‘teleworkability’. The few exceptions (Interpolis, TNO Arbeid), mainly seizing the opportunities of building new offices or relocate their businesses, to combine flexible offices with teleworking policies, soon get nation-wide attention. Meanwhile, various surveys indicate a further growth of telework in the Netherlands in the 1999-2001 period, although this expansion seems to concentrate on multi-site telework by mainly self-employed - largely a ‘new economy’ phenomenon (Van Klaveren and Van de Westelaken, 2001). In this country, teleworking is apparently spreading rather informally and implicitly, leaving a wide gap between the policies of organisations and the preferences of many workers.