Отправлено si 26 сентября 2003 г. 19:30 В ответ на: Плохо вы знаете. отправлено Elektronik 26 сентября 2003 г. 17:36

3.16.2 Telework in the USA
For some aspects of teleworking, notably corporate telecommuting (employees working at home), the USA has long been recognised as having a substantial lead. A study reported at Telecommute '9736 estimated that 11.1 million USA employees now work at least part time at home, compared with 9.7 million one year earlier. This is of course considerably more than in the whole of Europe, though Europe has more workers in total than the USA. Although problems of definition and measurement provide the same issues regarding telework estimation in USA as in Europe, it is clear that the Americans are much more rapidly embracing at least the telecommuter approach to teleworking.

Reasons for this are not hard to find. The USA is considerably further down the Information Society track than Europe on almost any metric - use of ICTs generally, use of Internet, prevalence of PCs in the home, PCs per 100 white collar workers. EITO estimates that in 1997, 37 in every hundred USA households owned a PC compared with a Western Europe average of 19. Among the larger EU economies the highest penetration was the UK with 23. Closely linked with this technology factor is the USA manager's more ready acceptance of innovation and change - or at least the ready willingness to "give it a try". Where a European response to a novel suggestion about work organisation might be a desire to consider all the possible issues and problems as well as the opportunities, the USA manager is more likely to say, "Seems like a good idea, let's give it a try". A further factor of course is the USA's recent history of sustained economic growth and high levels of job creation, especially in the newer industries most closely associated with the Information Society. When employees feel secure in their jobs or confident of getting an equivalent or better job if something goes wrong in the present employer, they are less likely to be concerned about being "out of sight" or out of touch when teleworking.

According to some observers, the most significant factor is the very widespread USA penetration and use of electronic networking technologies within enterprises. For several years it has been unusual to encounter an American manager or professional who does not have an email address on their business card, whether in the private or the public sector. The USA Federal Government was putting out strong messages at Presidential level about the need for industry to "get connected", even before Europe's attention was drawn to these opportunities by the Bangemann Report.

The measurement now most commonly used in the USA as an indicator of telework preparedness is "remote access" - the provision by organisations of facilities for employees to access and work on company ICT systems from outside the organisation - at home, on the road, from a customer's premises. Recent estimates for the UK Department of Trade and Industry suggest that in 1997 half of all USA companies already had implemented remote access provisions, compared with only one third in the UK, on quarter in Germany and one in six in France. The four key reasons for telework's rapid acceptance in the USA are quoted as:

remote access programs increase work-force productivity; 73% of participating telecommuters in a Massachusetts study reported that they were more effective while working away from the office;
offering telecommuting as an option improves employee morale and helps companies retain qualified staff;
the government due to environmental concerns and the desire to reduce and helps auto emissions in mandating telework;
companies offer telecommuting to cut costs. They have found that telework can indeed save money by reducing the amount of funds paid for office space and other facilities costs37.
Telework in the USA is not confined as a services sector activity. The US aircraft manufacturer Boeing is reported to be planning for some 5000 telecommuters in the near term future, based on experience from a large-scale pilot programme involving 200 employees.

Of course, Europe differs from the USA in more ways than technology penetration and speed of acceptance of change. Some factors militate against very large-scale telework in the basic "work at home model", for example across much of Europe, homes are smaller than those of equivalent workers in the USA. On the other hand, car commuting costs are very much higher in both relative and real terms for European commuters than in the USA, which should provide an additional incentive for working closer to home if not in the home itself. Europe needs to closely observe and engage with the USA experience in telework as in other Information Society applications, so as to learn from it but not necessarily copy it.