Today in China

Teleworking is slowly beginning to catch on in China

More and more employees of big companies are allowed to telework part-time or even full-time in China. Here is a snapshot from China Daily.

IBM - Over 80% of 9,000 employees in China work flexibly. Tens of them work full-time at home.

Microsoft - All of Microsoft’s over 2,000 employees in China work flexibly. Over 1,000 employees in the SMG (Sales, Marketing & Service Group) are allowed to work from home two days per month.

Hewlett-Packard - All of the employees in China HP’s corporate communications department are allowed to work from home one day per week.

Panasonic - Over 30,000 employees of the company’s employees in Japan allowed to work one or two days per week at home since March 2007. No similar plan in China.

I would really appreciate such a plan being started by the company I’m working for…

Source:
China Daily - 2007-06-25

Further readings:
Does Telework Fit China? by Zheng Zhao & Kazuo Nakamura, 2004

[link]

2 Responses to “Teleworking is slowly beginning to catch on in China”

Peter Bojanic Says:
June 27th, 2007 at 10:19 am
Hi Theirry,

My company is global and in most countries people work from their homes. Even in North America, where we are setting up offices now, these will be “campus style” with employees coming in for meetings, etc. instead of working full time.

In Beijing, all of our staff work from the brick & mortar office at Fu Hua. We have extended the opportunity to “SOHO”, but most people have rejected it and rather endure the long commute into the 2nd ring.

This marriage between western style companies and Chinese workers is of big interest to me — especially in engineering and other knowledge-related industries.
Thierry Says:
June 28th, 2007 at 5:15 am
Hi Peter,

What you say is quite interesting. I have some Chinese colleagues who would accept right away. One of them even did some teleworking when we sent him on Business Trip in France!!! We sent him to Paris for one week and he stayed at the Hotel for two days working in VPN instead of going to the Office. Can you believe that? We sent him so that he may meet other colleagues and do some networking and he works from the Hhotel!