Social scientists at NUI, Galway are looking at whether teleworking, or working from home, might play a role in providing a solution to the city’s problems with traffic congestion.
The ConsEnSus collaboration, between Trinity College Dublin and NUIG, is examining key areas of household consumption: transport, energy, water, and food.
The transport work package examines how people travel and how current travel patterns that are expensive, time-consuming, and environmentally unsound.
As part of their research they are looking into how working from home could become a more widely adopted method that would require fewer people to have to make the daily commute to the office.
Dr Henrike Rau, lecturer in the School of Political Science and Sociology , who is heading transport research, said:“We need sustainable solutions that will benefit Galway well into the future. Mobile devices and information and communication technologies are already an integral part of everyday life for many in Galway. Working from home could potentially benefit employees, employers, and the environment by reducing the need to commute to work.”
However teleworking, or working from home while communicating with the workplace, was put forward as such a solution in the early 2000s, but failed to resonate with many employers and employees. As a result the researchers are looking into what went wrong then and what needs to be done in the future to encourage more employers and employees to consider adopting this route in the future.
ConsEnSus’ Mike Hynes acknowledged that “many social aspects that impact on whether people can successfully work from home are overlooked” and both management and workers “need to be fully aware of all the issues”.
“Family commitments, neighbours’ expectations, and the importance of the social aspects of work are factors that need to be considered by workers and management before a person commits to teleworking,” he said.
He said teleworking can lead to increased productivity and improve the work/life balance, it has “considerable drawbacks” such as longer working hours, blurring of boundaries between work and leisure, as well as “unrealistic management expectations and experiences of isolation among teleworkers”.
The research is continuing and Mr Hynes said the team is interested in hearing from people who are currently working from home or who have teleworked in the past. Those interested in sharing their experience and knowledge with the research project can email Mr Hynes through [email protected]
