TIME FOR TELEWORKING?
How Teleworking Affects the Working Hours and Non-Work Time
of BT Teleworkers
Dr. Peter Hopkinson, Professor Peter James and Takao Maruyama
University of Bradford
SustainIT
April 2002
This report summarises an on-line survey of staff registered
with Workabout, BT’s official teleworking scheme. Answers were received from
1874 people – a very satisfactory response rate of 36.5% of the overall sample
of 5128 staff.
The majority of respondents felt that they had a better life through teleworking
than if they commuted to an office:
85% felt that their quality of life was good or very good
82% felt that teleworking was important or very important to their quality of
life
73% felt that their work-life balance was good or very good
90% were satisfied or very satisfied with teleworking.
A small minority of respondents felt that teleworking was having negative
effects on their life, mainly because of increased working hours.
In addition:
33% of respondents stated that their contribution to domestic activity had
increased
14% reported that it had made it easier to become involved in community
activities
10% believed that they would be unable to do their present job if unable to
telework.
However, 69% of respondents stated that their working hours had increased, with
45% of respondents reporting an increase of more than 9 hours per week. How can
this paradox of higher quality of life but increased working hours be explained?
One reason is reduced time commuting, which can free time for both work and
private life, and also greatly reduce stress. Another is the ability to
multi-task – for example, hanging out washing during breaks – so that there is
more quality time at the evening or weekends.
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