Australia - Digital Economy - Teleworking

Synopsis

In 2012 the government committed to having 12% of public servants regularly working from home by 2020.

Deloitte telework research (2012) has found telework will add an extra $3.2 billion a year to GDP, which is the equivalent of an extra 25,000 full-time jobs, by 2020-21.

With the rollout of the NBN, telework will become an increasingly viable option for people living in regional Australia.

But problems with workers feeling isolated at home mean that teleworking hasn't been the change that was anticipated. Working at home could mean a very lonely experience with huge social implications, which is why many employers and employees are finding it difficult to implement.

The Australian Telework Research Network has said that telework hasn't been taken up widely because many organisations don't think about the business case for doing it. But if an organisation can say telework is adding to their bottom line, it would be much easier to implement.

Telework is more easily adopted in fast-moving industries like tech, media and design. But it is likely to become more widely used in some unexpected industries such as healthcare, education and middle management.

The current Government has not followed up on these earlier government initiatives and most of the programmes launched earlier in the decade have been abandoned or have come to a standstill.