Research

Teleworking - an industrial revolution?

A new report by Chimera, the University’s Institute for Socio-Technical Innovation and Research at Adastral Park, aims to provide a picture of the current state of ‘teleworking’ – working from home or away from the office using information and communication technologies (ICTs) to connect remotely. It is a phenomenon which has grown rapidly in recent years and could bring some of the biggest changes to how we work since the industrial revolution.

The findings give an idea of the scale of ‘telecommuting’ – 2.5million teleworkers in the UK, half of Europe’s workforce occasionally working from home, and a fifth of the British workforce having the potential to swap their offices for online connections to them.

Anna Haywood, who has been leading the research said: 'The 11 September attacks help explain a recent surge in telework, with staff in many sectors wary of commuting into large cities. Yet the potential benefits of teleworking give a more comprehensive explanation of its gradual growth as, in addition to benefiting people’s quality of life, it offers the prospect of better employee recruitment and retention, reduced absenteeism, opportunities for those currently more excluded from the job market (parents, carers and the disabled), reduced office space needs, and less stress on transport systems and the environment.'

Anna continued: 'The research has found that job types valuing creativity and operating on informal relationships are most suited to telework – for example programmers, market research analysts and editors. The study has also examined organisational prerequisites and personal sacrifices – with teleworkers potentially having to deal with less feedback, career development support and opportunities to socialise with colleagues. Perhaps the most significant opportunity presented by more flexible work patterns is the prospect of creating greater harmony between work and the rest of our lives. In the past, we bent ourselves to the rhythm and location of work. Increasingly, we can bend work to suit ourselves.'

For more information, contact Anna Haywood, e-mail ahaywo@essex.ac.uk.

Self and the City

The end of rented social housing and its replacement by housing support; accusations of misogyny hurled at critics of mothers who drive 4X4s; and British society’s obsession with preserving green fields at the expense of housing need.

These were just some of the feisty opinions expressed at the ‘Self and the City,' conference hosted by the Department of Art History and Theory in connection with the £311,000 AHRB-funded ‘Concepts of Self in the Theory and Practice of Post-War Architecture and Urbanism’ project.

Speakers at the event, which took place at Tate Modern, included some of the greatest international figures who have forged current policies in architecture and urban design: Leon Krier, designer of the Prince of Wales’s new town outside Dorchester and founder of the influential New Urbanist movement; Charles Jencks, inventor of the term Post Modernism; and Denise Scott Brown who designed the Sainsbury Wing of the National Gallery with her husband Robert Venturi. When asked whether she would design a casino, Scott Brown, co-author of the famous book Learning from Las Vegas, replied, ‘I haven’t designed a casino and I don’t gamble – yet I have learnt from Las Vegas.’

Project Director Professor Jules Lubbock from the Department of Art History and Theory, was delighted with the event: ‘All 250 seats were sold out and everyone thoroughly enjoyed themselves. The level of discussion was extraordinarily high. We have persuaded people that it is very fruitful to think about cities and buildings in terms of their influence upon the self.’ The most interesting idea to emerge, he said, is that the human self is constantly changing and architects and planners must take this into account.