The Framework Agreement on Telework (2002) was the first of the non-legally binding (soft law) agreements concluded by the European Social Partners. The employer organisations UNICE, CEEP, and UEAPME, and the trade union organisation ETUC. Although

Concerns the European Framework Agreement on Telework and its implementation in Spain and the UK.

Seminar paper from the year 2014 in the subject Business economics - Business Management, Corporate Governance, grade: 1.4, Frankfurt School of Finance & Management, language: English, abstract: I would like to start this paper with a quote from the American president: “[Workplace flexibility] is an issue that affects the well-being of our families and the success of our businesses. It affects the strength of our economy -- whether we’ll create the workplaces and jobs of the future we need to compete in today’s global economy” (Obama, 2010, p.1). The World at Work report states that “employers in advanced economies could face a shortage of 16 to 18 million college-educated workers in 2020 ... many nations can narrow the skill gap raising the labor force participation rate of college-educated women and keeping older high-skill workers [emphasis not in original] in the labor force” (Dobbs et al, 2012). One of the possible ways to handle this problem is to implement work place flexibility and telework opportunities for these two groups of employees. Commerzbank is the second largest bank in Germany and Poland with more than 54,000 employees around the globe (Commerzbank, 2014, p.1). Its business is influenced by world labour trends, as well as the business of other organisations. The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate a theoretical basis of flexible work arrangements and telework for Commerzbank. The implementation of work place flexibility should definitely help Commerzbank retain its competitiveness and attractiveness on the international labour market.

Technological developments have enabled a dramatic expansion and also an evolution of telework, broadly defined as using ICTs to perform work from outside of an employer’s premises. This volume offers a new conceptual framework explaining the evolution of telework over four decades. It reviews national experiences from Argentina, Brazil, India, Japan, the United States, and ten EU countries regarding the development of telework, its various forms and effects. It also analyses large-scale surveys and company case studies regarding the incidence of telework and its effects on working time, work-life balance, occupational health and well-being, and individual and organizational performance.

Dear Reader This is a book about mobile virtual work. It aims at clarifying the basic concepts and showing present practices and future challenges. The roots of the book are in the collaboration of few European practitioners and - searchers, who met each other under the umbrella of the Swedish SALTSA programme (see next page) in January 2002 in Stockholm. The group was first called ‘ICT, Mobility and Work Organisation’ but redefined itself quickly as ‘Mobile Virtual Cooperative Work’ group. The change of the name reflects the development of reasoning in the group. We could not find much material on mobile work, certainly not systematic studies, - though a growing interest in mobile technologies and services could be found. Practices of telework and virtual organizations were better known, but we were convinced that the combination with mobile work was so- thing different and new. Our main target became to understand what it was all about. The next step was an expert meeting in October 2004 at Rånäs Castle again in Sweden. A wider group of experts was invited to present their views on mobile virtual work and ideas about book chapters from different perspectives of working life. Some of the expertise could be found through the network of the AMI@Work family created by the New Working En- ronments unit of the European Commission’s Information Society Dir- torate-General. Also close collaboration was developed with the related MOSAIC program.

Labour and social security law studies have addressed the topic of the decline of the standard employment relationship mainly from the point of view of the growing number of atypical relationships. Only a limited number of studies have examined the issue from the perspective of the differentiation between core and contingent work. Such an examination is necessary as the increase in contingent work leads to complicated legal questions which vary between European states depending on the type of contingent arrangements that have become most prevalent. This book analyses, using a comparative approach, these different types of contingency from a national and EU perspective touching on the work relationship from a labour as well as a social security point of view. The aim of the book is to identify and analyse those questions adopting an innovative approach and to put forward proposals for safeguarding social cohesion within undertakings and European society.