Mobile multilocational work: benefits and drawbacks

Mobile multilocational work is a sub-type of remote and telework. A mobile worker uses different locations outside the primary workplace for work and communicates—when needed—with others via electronic tools. He or she is often a member of a virtual team (VT). This chapter provides an overview of mobile multilocational work and its benefits and drawbacks. The drawbacks are also analyzed as challenges and hindrances concerning a mobile worker’s job demands. The overview shows that some of the demands when considered as challenges and hindrances are unique to working in certain types of locations, while others recur in all or most of them. The change of physical locations results in a continuous search for a place to work and means that the mobile worker can be an outsider in all communities—including the main workplace and home. Limited connections and Internet access are the main hindrances when collaborating from different locations in addition to varying working demands in local contexts.