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Abstract
Studies of home-based telework by women yield mixed results regarding the usefulness of telework in facilitating work–life balance. Most research on the social impacts of home-based telework focuses on workers—employees or self-employed—who deliberately choose that alternative work arrangement. Labour force analysts, however, predict an increase in employer-initiated teleworking. As a case study of the workforce of one large, financial-sector firm in Canada, this article considers the conditions of employment of involuntary teleworkers, those required by their employer to work full-time from a home office. In-depth interviews were co nducted with a sample of 18 female teleworkers working for the case study firm in a professional occupation. Study participants described the advantages and disadvantages of working from home, particularly with regard to spatial and social aspects of locating work in a home setting. The gendered nature of their jobs, and the caring and supportive functions they provide both through their employment and their household responsibilities are seen to support the relocation of their jobs from office to their homes. In many jurisdictions, telework is promoted as a means of giving women more flexibility to balance their paid work with their household responsibilities; the article highlights some of the contradictions involved in moving the workplace into women's homes.
Los estudios del teletrabajo desde casa han rendido resultados confusos de la utilidad del teletrabajo en facilitar la balanza de vida-trabajo. La mayoría de investigaciones sobre los impactos sociales de teletrabajo desde casa enfocan en los trabajadores – empleados o autoempleados – quienes eligen trabajar en éste arreglo de trabajo alternativo. Los analistas del mercado laboral, sin embargo, pronostican una alza en el teletrabajo iniciado por los empleadores. Éste artículo, como un estudio de caso de la plantilla de una de las firmas mas grandes en el sector financiero canadiense, considera las condiciones del trabajo de teletrabajadoras involuntarias, aquellos obligados por sus empleadores a trabajar a tiempo completo desde una oficina en casa. Se realizaron 18 entrevistas profundas con teletrabajadoras que tienen ocupaciones profesionales en la firma del estudio de caso. Las participantes describieron las ventajas y desventajas del teletrabajo, en particular en cuanto a los aspectos espaciales y sociales del trabajar en casa. Se entiende que el carácter generizado de sus oficios y los cargos de cuidado y apoyo que tienen las mujeres en sus responsabilidades familiares y en al trabajo facilitan la reubicación de sus trabajos de la oficina hacia la casa. En muchas jurisdicciones, el teletrabajo se promueve como una manera de proveer más flexibilidad a las mujeres para que puedan lograr un equilibrio entre sus vidas de trabajo y sus responsabilidades familiares. Éste artículo subraya algunas de las contradicciones que existen en la reubicación del lugar de trabajo hacia las casas de las mujeres.
Acknowledgements
We owe a debt of gratitude to our case study workplace, the managers who supported our research initiative, and the teleworking employees who generously contributed the time to tell us their stories. Financial support for this research was provided, in part, by a standard research grant from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. The authors wish to thank this journal's anonymous reviewers for thoughtful comments on an earlier version of this article.
Notes
1. Mussen and Tietze (Citation2004), in a UK study of professionals who teleworked from home, described how these workers reshaped and renegotiated temporal and spatial boundaries between (paid) work and the rest of their lives.
2. Based on their qualitative study of Swedish teleworkers' home workspaces, Wikström et al. (Citation1998, p. 203) contrast the ‘place in the sun’ arrangements in which workers—typically females—opportunistically seek out available areas of peace and tranquility within the home, with the physically separate ‘splendid isolation’ workspaces typically used by male teleworkers.
3. The name of the case study company is a pseudonym.
4. A word should be said about the ‘real world’ nature of this research. Change is a constant in a case study project such as this. Changes occurred both in corporate policy regarding alternative work arrangements and in individual workers' life and family situations. Over the course of the study, individual participants altered their work schedules, hours of work and work locations, the relative proportions of work done from home and head office, and even their job descriptions. For this reason, while most of their observations were based on current work experience, some were reflections on their past employment experiences. During the course of data collection the researchers were occasionally frustrated by the challenge of studying such a ‘moving target’. Upon reflection, we have become aware that the data set is enriched by the addition of the insight and perspective of participants who can compare and contrast their various work arrangements as these change over time.
5. All names of participants are pseudonyms.