What are the main reasons why INDIVIDUALS do not want to eWork 1-2 days per week from home?

[Jasper Lim]

Hi All,

I am doing a small study on the reasons why individuals, in particular employees do not wish to work 1-2 days from home. Preliminary findings suggest the following reasons:

1. The nature of work (e.g. secretary duties are unsuitable to work from home)
2. Importance of face-to-face contact
3. Distraction from home (personal work, kids etc)
4. Lack of office resources from home
5. Very short commuting time (no incentive to work from home)
6. Home-work separation (employee wants to separate home from work duties
7. Peer constraints (peers do not like home working, discourages it)

I'm looking to compare the above findings with existing literature. If someone knows of any relevant studies in which I can compare and cite on my new paper, please let me know. Kindly note that I am looking for reasons at an individual level, not on an organisation or macro level.

Thanks for your help. Looking forward to the references!

[Akio Saito]

Hi Jesper,

I've just found an interesting article posted 6 years ago, 2002 that reported results of research conducted among teleworkers in UK. It seems to me that the report hinted a couple of reason why employees (in UK) don't want to work at home, (a) some difficulties in time management and (b) a fear to sacrifice his or her career as a result of the teleworking. You may check the article at http://www.vnunet.com/vnunet/news/2120639/teleworking-pays-bt.

To my knowledge, BT has made a number of surveys on the topic of teleworking since early 90's perhaps for the company itself as the employer and for its own business services.

I'm afraid that you already knew the above, but for just in case...

Akio

[Karsten Gareis]

Hi Jasper,

Our SIBIS study from 2002/2003, which included a survey of 12,000 adults across all then EU Member States, asked whether the respondent's job was in principle suitable for telework, and if not what the reasons were. The results were as follows:

Note that the replies do not say anything about personal reasons for the individual not to be interested in telework. The full report (empirica (2003) 'SIBIS Topic Report No.5: Work, Employment and Skills') can be downloaded from http://www.sibis-eu.org/, or simply send me a mail and I will send it to you.

Best,
Karsten