The Idea of Ework

The idea of eWork is closely linked to the development of the knowledge society in Europe. The Lisbon Strategy highlighted the importance of creating "more and better jobs and greater social cohesion". Not just "more jobs", but also "better jobs" a good working environment, a better reconciliation of work and personal life, health and safety at work, employee involvement, and diversity in working life. The knowledge society opens new perspectives for the quality of work: creating the conditions for change in existing jobs, generating new working methods and new ways of organising work, and allowing greater flexibility in the workplace. Modernisation of work organisation in a knowledge-based economy is one of the 11 areas identified by the eEurope 2005 Action Plan. The main accent is now on new collaboration structures, value creation, mobility at work and knowledge management for professional (cyber)communities, as they complement the market dimension of eBusiness with the reengineering required of working methods and organisations.
The term telework had been popularised in Europe from the late 1980s and early 1990s; in 1999, with the introduction of the eEurope initiative, the broadening in scope of ICT enabled work styles was reflected by the introduction of the term eWork. eWork can be generally defined as any normal business activity carried out from a remote location by using modern computing and communication technology. SIBIS ("Statistical Indicators Benchmarking the Information Society") research distinguishes between home-based eWork, mobile eWork and eWork by self-employed who work from SOHOs, i.e. small offices in their home. According to the 2003 Collaboration@Work Report, taking all types of eWork together, 13% of the working population in the EU can be classified as eworkers:
  * More than 7% of the EU workforce are practising home-based eWork.
  * 4% are mobile eworkers (spending a considerable share of their working time away from their home...