Teleworking: Evolution and Trends in Usa, Eu and Romania

1.IntroductionTeleworking (telecommuting) could be defined as carrying out remote work activities at home, using information technology. In this way, an employee performs the duties of his/her office from a distance. Work takes place during the work schedule of the company or outside of this program. Teleworking can have a schedule approved by the companies or may be temporary due to unexpected events or emergencies.Adopting a policy of teleworking in a company is dictated by several factors among which we can mention (Svidronova, Merickova and Nemec, 2016) economic factors (level of well-being has a significant influence on the adoption of teleworking), social factors (education of the population), technological factors (IT infrastructure).Teleworking brings benefits in the sphere of productivity, greater flexibility for working time of the employee, allows hiring people with outstanding skills and qualifications who do not live near the workplace, reduces personnel costs, reduces pollution, and creates opportunity to continue working in the company regardless of weather conditions.2.Teleworking IT TechnologyMany organizations do not achieve high productivity through teleworking because they do not use leverage technology needed to make more effective teleworking, such as cloud computing and modern telephony systems. Most of these technologies bring benefits which far outweigh the costs associated with these technologies.Teleworking does not require a particular type of connection service but it requires sufficient speed for the employee to do the job. Connections may be either wired (DSL, cable modem, fiber, broadband over powerline) or Wi-Fi, satellite, mobile telephony (3G, 4G). Download and upload speeds are equally important for sending or downloading emails or files but also for online collaboration and video conferencing.Download / Upload speed in a typical domestic teleworking workplace is around 15 to 20 Mbs but these values evolve with the development of IT technology. These speeds are sufficient to achieve a real-time link with headquarters and company staff.We present below 5 business technologies (Logicalis, 2013) that enable greater productivity through teleworking.Cloud computing and virtualization. Virtualization lets you use a service like technology software (SaaS - Software as a Service) offering employees access to devices and software that would not otherwise be able to access on their local hard disk. For example, desktop as a service (DAAS - Desktop As A Service) gives users access to their computer desktop through web, allowing employees to use the software and files, without needing to bring home the PC from work. Secure cloud computing can also give you the ability to access files and software stored in the cloud via the web.Virtual private network (VPN). A virtual private network frees users from security concerns when employees access internal resources. For many organizations, this makes VPN to become one of the most important tools to make really effective telework. Virtual private network offers users a secure, private connection between two devices, such as their home PC and server at the office. This provides the safest method to give employees access to the same network resources that they would have in the office.Electronic management of documents. The ability to retrieve files remotely depends on the location of those files. They must be in digital format and accessible from the network. Electronic document management systems, or electronic content management (ECM), help users manage online content, allowing them to quickly and easily retrieve the information. ECMs may be added to documents and data from a number of sources, such as online forms, emails, paper documents scanned and multimedia content in a single repository where they can be accessed from safe distance, searched or retrieved.Modern phone systems. …