Introductory 

A short-term experiment in teleworking techniques and methods involving a number of employees of the Rome Municipality began in July 1996. Fifty members of staff, from ten different sections of the local authority, were involved in the pilot, which saw them teleworking for an average of one or two days a week. The majority (75%) teleworked from home. A small number worked from a telecentre (5%), undertook mobile work (5%) or made use of various combinations of telework possibilities (15%). Of a total of 1,000 staff working days monitored during the telework experiment, 400 were teleworked and 600 were worked from the traditional office.

The Rome Municipality experiment was an important institutional precedent, in that it was the first of its kind to be carried out by an Italian public administration.

Context of the experiment

The 1996 telework pilot was the result of collaboration by the Rome Municipality with a consortium of research organisations engaged in carrying out the EU-funded Roma Tra.De project. Roma Tra.De (TRAffic DEcongestion), part of the LIFE programme, was engaged to analyse whether telework in Rome could have an impact on city centre traffic reduction and help improve the quality of urban life. The organisations engaged in the Roma Tra.De. project were Innova Int., S3Acta, Fondazione Ugo Bordoni and DS Graphics Engineering.

In 1995, the Roma Tra.De. partners undertook the first phase of the project, developing a matrix showing the origin and destination of journeys in the main urban area involved. There were initial concerns that, for institutional reasons, it would not be possible to progress to a concrete telework pilot, to test the hypothesis behind the project.

Fortunately, these concerns proved unfounded, and it was possible to develop the telework experiment. To a considerable extent, this was due to the interest and commitment of the City's Alderman for Juridicial Policies who from the summer of 1995 acted as a point of contact between Roma Tra.De. and the Municipality and who in early 1996 presented a proposal to the council in the paper Approvazione Linea di Sperimentazione di Techniche e Metodi del Telelavoro per il Progetto Europeo Roma Tra.De.. Press interest in the possibilities of telework had already been stimulated, partly by a speech made by the Mayor of Rome at the international Telework 95 conference held in the city in November 1995 and by a presentation by Roma Tra.De. held at the Rome Town Hall a month earlier.

The Alderman for Juridicial Policies involved the Rome Aldermen of Personnel and Occupational Policies in preparing for the pilot and the Municipality formally gave the go ahead for the telework experiment in July 1996 (council resolution 2479/96), by which stage the initiative had already got under way. The Tra.De. partners undertook to monitor the environmental impact of the pilot.

It is important to note that the Rome telework pilot was brought into effect despite the standard contractual frameworks which govern municipal employment in Italy, and which would seem to offer few opportunities to telework. In most respects, distance working and productive work from home are not permitted under these frameworks, and indeed recently the introduction of electronic control systems for monitoring hours worked have reinforced the traditional arrangements for local authority staff to work set hours from defined locaions. It is worth noting that, in this respect, new technology far from permitting greater flexibility is being used in favour of reinforcing restraints and controls in work organisation.

These arrangements mean that the legal basis for initiatives to introduce telework into the Italian civil service is unclear, if permitted at all.

The start of the telework pilot 

The fifty employees involved comprised 20 municipal administrators, 10 archaeologists, 7 sociologists, 4 cultural operators, 4 draughtsmen, 2 engineers and 3 computer operators. The individuals were chosen by their line managers, and although the employees had different reasons for wanting to telework they were all well-motivated to work autonomously and to manage their own work. To be accepted on to the telework programme, employees had to live some considerable distance from the office, to know how to use data processing tools and to carry out verifiable activities.

Arrangements regarding performance indicators and work organisation for teleworking was subject to individual agreement between each employee and their line manager. There was an element of arbitrariness in the selection of teleworkers, and the sample was characterised by the fact that the project was inadequately publicised. In two cases, authorisation was revoked by line managers in order to avoid conflicts.

The activities which were undertaken on a telework basis included such things as work on cultural heritage records, the development of applied data processing, the compilation of documents and reports, technical drawing and environmental data monitoring, etc. This was work which was not subject to procedural regulations and which could be carried out off-line. Generally, these activities were one part only of the work undertaken by the professionals involved.

Obviously, many other types of work not covered in the experiment may also be suitable for distance telework.

Whilst most telework was undertaken from employees' own homes, a second alternative was to make use of a telecentre run by the Roma Tra.De. consortium. In general, teleworkers continued to undertake most of their work from their usual offices.

Formal organisation of the experiment

Resolution 2479/96 of the Municipality which approved the development of the telework experiment clarified the framework of the programme, emphasising the environmental importance attached to it and the link with the Roma Tra.De project which the council was already committed to support. The resolution was anticipated by two authorisation circulars sent to managers of departments of the Municipality by personnel heads, informing them of the characteristics of the telework pilot and inviting their participations. The circulars were not prescriptive, but did suggest that activities suitable for telework included off-line working and work connected to previously defined projects.

The circulars also were concerned to promote the pilot, pointing out the pioneering nature of the work which Rome Municipality was undertaking.

The Personnel department was itself actively involved in the telework programme, with six employees from the department among those who participated in the experiment. A working group was set up to analyse the pilot's success, liaise with the Roma Tra.De consortium and to produce a final report after the pilot period was over. The working group met periodically in the office of the Alderman, Personnel, and acted as a point of exchange for all interested parties.
 

Control body approval, but lack of union approval

The approval by Rome Municipality in July 1996 was made easier partly because it was stressed that the telework programme was to be an experimental and limited initiative and partly also because no administrative costs were involved.

In terms of union representatives, relations were kept at the level of information exchange and communication rather than formal negotiation. Various matters were resolved informally: for example, the removal of the original proposal which had stipulated that teleworkers' performance would be subject to evaluation.

The union representatives expressed strong reservations about the arrangements, though (in the case of the CGIL) without formally entering a dispute procedure. The independent trade unions limited themselves to a statement expressing their non-favourable attitude. The unions reserved the right to make criticism of the arrangements in the future, and it was foreseeable that negotiations would be more complex for any subsequent telework initiatives proposed.

Some issues of concern which have been raised concerning telework (including for example worker isolation, production control, piece work, the reduction of employment guarantees and protection, the restructuring of work processes and the globalisation of labour markets) were not discussed in any depth in relation to the telework pilot. Strong reservations were made about the idea of home-working, with the view expressed that teleworking should be permitted only where access to a telecentre was available.

In spite of these criticisms, the unions did not formally contest the most sensitive points of the solutions adopted (e.g. the use of personal equipment, the lack of legal insurance for telework executed in the home etc.).

 Management approval

The standpoint of management was uncertain; managers were concerned about the responsibilities they had to assume with regard to authorisation of work executed off the work premises, the possibility of criticism in the selection of the teleworking participants, and the issue of adjusting to a less direct form of supervision and control over employees working away from the office.

The work of raising the issue of telework internally within the Municipality was aided by a public seminar held in October 1996. Subsequently, direct relations were established with a core group of managers who were favourable to the experiment.

Evaluation of the pilot

The environmental objectives of the project, as part of the overall work of the Roma Tra.De. project, were stressed in public communications about the telework experiment.

Unfortunately, the administration cut some aspects of the scientific methodology planned for the pilot. This meant that a scientific approach in the preparation of the experiment was lacking, when, for example, participants had to fill out complex forms concerning their schedules and travelling.

Consultants and researchers did, however, develop a useful dialogue within the Municipality and appreciated the degree of institutional problems which the programme presented and the efforts taken by the Municipality to enable the experiment to take place.

 The Rome Municipality decided to proceed with the telework programme without detailed research into the technological or organisational questions raised. Flexibility and identification of the solutions were perhaps the most important features in the success of the experiment. This confirms that taking advantage of practical opportunities as they arise can be preferable, in this phase, to abstract planning.

 Since the telework pilot was not worked out in detail in advance, there was considerable improvisation in its implementation. At the conclusion of the initial phase of the experiment, "scientific" reference data for an adequate methodological reflection was lacking. It is therefore evident that an intelligent work programme suitable to distance work favours micro-solutions and organic growth in the sector.
 
 

Future directions

Once the 1996 telework pilot had been concluded, the Rome Municipality considered ways of developing a new and more extensive telework phase. In February 1997, the relevant council committee approved a document on 'new telework experimentation policies with administration staff'. Meanwhile in March, the national government and the unions established an agreement permitting the introduction of flexibility into the public sector and telework experimentation for the first time in public administrative structures. This was the Protocol on Public Employment, signed by the Minister for Public Affairs and the trade unions.

However, plans for telework negotiations within Rome Municipality with the trade unions never really came to fruition during 1997. This was not due to any lack of consensus after the initial pilot, but was rather due to a loss of momentum, caused partly by the resignation of a key personnel officer and partly by bureaucratic inertia. Municipal elections held in November 1997 were seen as the catalyst which would herald further movement forward.

Meanwhile Rome Municipality has focused on supporting telework development by small and medium-sized enterprises and individuals.