How to Achieve Sustainable Efficiency with Teleworkers: Leadership Model in Telework

Abstract Globalization, increasing competition, changes in demographic structure of population, and development of information and communication technologies (ICT) are the factors that have posed new challenges for organizations in recent years. The newly fledged conditions have vital impact on production methods and procedures as well as work arrangements in organizations. Currently, organizations cope with various times in which work is executed as well as various places where it is executed. Thanks to ICT an employee can work at the client's place, at home, in a means of transport or in a cafe. All these situations constitute the work arrangement in which the worker is considered to work ‘from distance’, i.e. as a teleworker. The presented approach refers to the flexible work arrangement where an organization's priority lies with its endeavour to become and stay flexible in terms of time and place of performance. Under these conditions the implementation of new ways of work arrangements presents new challenges for leadership. To accomplish this basic function of management when employees are not present at workplace or even are not available during working hours and face-to-face communication is impossible poses many difficulties. The paper focuses on comparison and identification of the differences between traditional work arrangements and telework, highlights weak points in leadership of teleworkers, and proposes a leadership model for teleworkers’ induction.