The health emergency caused by COVID-19 has reopened, with particular vigour, the debate surrounding the impact of teleworking on working conditions, as well as on the possibilities it offers for conciliation. Given the high level of telework among women, it is necessary to reflect on the impact that the use of this mode of productive work may have on them and on other aspects of daily life. The extent of teleworking implies a threat to women in the sense that teleworking can have a particularly negative impact on women’s work, and this, in turn, would put at risk the progress made during the last few years in the area of gender equality. The regulation of telework is necessary to prevent it from turning into a trap that places the burden of conciliation on women.

After the increase in teleworking due to the COVID-19 pandemic, many organizations have seen the potential of this way of working and wish to initiate or advance its implementation in a planned way. To this end, it may be useful to develop the capacity of their managers or professionals to be smart working agents, in order to promote the implementation of a form of flexible teleworking that makes good use of technological tools and that favours the best working conditions. After defining smart working, this article presents a competency framework for the role of a smart working agent focused on three key competencies: understanding the context, facilitating implementation, and leading in a digital environment.

The article first describes the different meanings given to the expression “new ways of working” in recent decades. It highlights its link to flexibility in the relationship between the employer and the workforce, with increasing emphasis on the separation from full-time, permanent employment conducted on company premises. This is followed by an introduction to the contributions included in this monograph, which offer a broad overview of the current new ways of working, paying particular attention to telework and presenting a critical view of the impact of platform work and telework.

The purpose of this article is to provide some basic information on telework and to develop, in parallel, some reflections on this economic reality and the role of its legal regulation.

For some years, we have been observing a process of transformation of the nuclear bases on which we have built our labour relations. It is the result of digitalization, which challenges the logic of physical concentration and detaches activity from a single, static location. In other words, telework comes as standard with digitalization. However, it is only when its advancement became so abrupt and far-reaching that we noticed the shift and can already sense a break from the traditional work model.

This article explores the evolutionary progress of telework, beginning with two circumstances that were its main driving factors – digitalization and the COVID-19 pandemic –; observing it from a double dimension, namely organizational and regulatory, and summarizing the main changes in the narrative on telework, in order to contribute to the reflection on the work of the future society.

The difficulties in work-life balance has become greatly important in the societies of the 21st century. An evergrowing number of organisations are interested in promoting and encouraging this approach, with the objective of improving the well-being and quality of life of their male and female workers in addition to attracting and fostering talent, improving productivity and, ultimately, becoming more competitive. In this context, one of the most used measures for achieving such objectives is teleworking. This article analyses, from the point of view of female teleworkers, if this labour system constitutes an efficient strategy for the work-life balance. The methodology used has been qualitative, specifically working with indepth interviews and discussion groups. The sample was composed of women teleworkers with some form of family dependents. The principal results show that teleworking for these female workers is a labour system which goes far beyond work-life balance. This is a kind of logic or mechanism which redefines the unfolding practices and which leads to the creation of new meanings in the realm of work and in compatibilisation with domestic, family and personal life. By practising teleworking, these women are producing a critical discourse with the prevailing labour model, characterised by their long working days which exclude the possibility of a life at the margin of the world of work. They use the possibilities of flexibility which teleworking provides them in order to reclaim their roles as professionals and as mothers, and as a result do not give up either of these roles, making use of teleworking as a tool for revealing a labour market which excludes all that is related to the sphere of care.

Telework involves a different approach to working. This can lead to certain health problems (technostress, technofatigue, technoaddiction, etc.) and may prevent others (musculoskeletal injuries due to cargo handling, etc.). The psychosocial risk factors that may affect their role are modified. Aspects like the almost constant use of technology or the changing personal relationships can have a positive or a negative impact. Therefore, the definition of telework must take into account strategies to prevent these potential risks, ensure optimal time management, have adequate emotional management and communication skills and a proper job.

The occupational health paradigm implemented with the Law on Prevention of Occupational Risks in 1995 is promoting new models of preventive management, still incipient, in favor of the so-called healthy organizations. As a result of this change, there has been a move from the traditional concept of safety and health, essentially linked with occupational accidents and diseases, towards a more far-reaching concept, safety and health, including workers' health in its whole extent, whether physical, psychological and social.

After twenty years of the enforcement of the rule, there are many achievements and progress has been made in prevention, but many challenges will arise in the coming years. Among others, those related to the breakdown of space and time barriers in the labor activity as a result of the incorporation of ICT. In this regard, the article deals with the problem that arises in the enforcement of occupational health and safety in telework.

The present analysis focuses on the problem from the very basis of the practical application of the requirement of occupational safety and health in telework, the occupational risk assessment, which is the foundation on which all our regulatory structure on prevention of occupational hazards is built and connected.