Homeworking and Family Life

• Teleworking Ireland says that teleworking is working at a distance from your employer or clients, either at home, on the road, or at a locally based centre. In this new business environment you can work almost anywhere so long as you have access to a computer, telephone and fax to keep in contact with your employer, customers or clients. This page looks at the basic FAQs of teleworking. Going back to their home page tells you more about them as a forum for information help and discussion for and by the members of Telework Association of Professional Teleworkers in Ireland.

• The Telecottage Association (TCA) is a not for profit company which is mainly UK based. If you are serious about teleworking then you must check out this site. They provide some on-line information and if you become an individual member (currently £34.50 UK; £39.50 rest of Europe; and £44.50 rest of world) you will receive a comprehensive handbook and a regular magazine, as well as access to other services and offers. They are also involved in research and provide information for employers as much as for teleworkers. Contact details for UK telecottages are given.

• A report (July 2000) has found that the Millennium brings a dramatic increase in teleworking with around a quarter of a million British people joining the teleworking workforce last year, an increase of 19%. You can read the full report at www.employment-studies.co.uk/press/0015.html.

• A US based resource is the website of Gil Gordon which looks at some more unusual questions.

• BT Working From Home site looks at the Technology Considerations for teleworkers (click on the section titled 'Work Life'.

• A comprehensive list of the benefits and the negatives of teleworking for the employer, employee, society and community can be found on the website of Telework Analytics International.

• To read one person's experience as a teleworker, check Nicola Harrison's excellent discourse on the subject at www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue17/teleworking/. Nicola is an Internet Librarian working at home for Edinburgh Engineering Virtual Library.