Telework: A Way to Balance Work and Family or an Increase in Work-Family Conflict?

Abstract

Some see in telework a way to better balance professional and personal or family responsibilities. We analyzed the data on telework in the Workplace Employee Survey (WES) and found that only a small percentage of workers indicate that they telework because of family obligations, while for two thirds, it is because of employers' demands. Data is compared according to gender and number of children, and again this highlights the fact that work-family balance is not the main reason for working at home. The data show that it is employers' requirements that explain the majority of hours of work done at home. Résumé:Certains voient dans le télétravail une façon de mieux concilier les responsabilités parentales et professionnelles. Nous présentons ici une analyse des données de l'Enquête sur le milieu de travail en évolution, et constatons plutôt que ce sont les exigences de l'employeur qui amènent les gens à travailler à la maison. Les données sont comparées selon le sexe, ainsi que le nombre d'enfants, et ceci permet de montrer que la conciliation emploi-famille n'est pas la principale raison pour travailler à domicile. Les données indiquent que ce sont les demandes des employeurs qui expliquent l'importance des heures de travail effectuées à domicile.

Remixing work, family and leisure: teleworkers' experiences of everyday life

“…Instead of an excess of leisure, one of the major problems today is the increasing demands of the workplace (Swan, 2005;Macky and Boxall, 2008), longer rather than shorter work weeks (Gambles et al, 2006;Turcotte, 2007;Gershuny, 2011), rising concerns about work-family conflict (Duxbury and Higgins, 2009), and increasing levels of time stress and work overload (Zuzanek, 2004). From this perspective, telework has been hailed as a potential solution (Tremblay et al, 2006). That is, telework has been advocated as a way for individual workers, and especially workers who are parents, to better manage the demands of work and family and to improve life balance (Bailey and Kurland, 2002;Madsen, 2003;Maruyama et al, 2009).…”

Using IT in work at home: taking a closer look at IT use in home‐located production

“…Perhaps surprising then, given this measure of consensus on growth projections, as well as the dramatic increase in IT use in paid work, much evidence suggests that over the last 30 years, the increase in home‐located telework and telework generally has proceeded at a modest pace and much below expectations. Most studies peg the current incidence of home‐located telework in Canada and the USA at somewhere between 5–12 per cent of the workforce (Baruch, 2001; Lowe and Schellenberg, 2001; Mokhtarian et al ., 2005; Tremblay et al ., 2006; Krahn et al ., 2007). That the robust uptake of ITs in the workplace has not been accompanied by parallel growth in home‐located telework challenges any technological determinist idea that ITs would virtually single‐handedly bring about a significant relocation of work.…”

Le télétravail, comme nouveau mode de régulation de la flexibilisation et de l’organisation du travail : analyse et impact du cadre légal européen et nord-américain

“…Le télétravail a été mis en place notamment pour améliorer les conditions de vie des salariés, mais il peut aussi susciter une intensification de leur travail. Le travail envahit alors la vie personnelle et la vie familiale (Tremblay, Paquet, Najem, 2006). En raison des contraintes de production sans cesse accrues, le télétravail pourrait aussi entrainer la disparition des temps de pause (Nanteuil, 2002) ou la dégradation de la situation professionnelle du télétravailleur (précarité, modifications substantielles de la relation d'emploi).…”