Posted by Burgos, March 14, 2022.- Teleworking, since 2020, was an imposition against the global Covid19 pandemic. Today, two years later, each company adopts its own version of Teleworking. From total abandonment, to different hybrid formulas. From being an organization of residual work, it has become strategic for both employers and employees.
Telefónica, Repsol, KPMG, BBVA, Mapfre or Vodafone have delayed the return date to 2022 and maintain a hybrid system in which at least 50% of their workforce is at home. In some cases, such as the energy multinational, continuous days have been established so that people cannot meet in the dining rooms. In the banking entity, the staff has been left to the will of the staff since December, when the incidence began to rise due to the omicron variant. And there is the case of Telefónica, where 100% of the staff with positions that allow teleworking performed their duties from home until last January.
Each multinational has found the most efficient telework for their productivity in an international context of constant uncertainty. Next, I review some examples that can be inspiring due to their design:
• Apple is planning a hybrid office and home work schedule in the future. The report states that Apple employees will be required to work from the office at least one day a week before April 11. At least two days a week by May 2 and at least three days a week by May 23. Those three days would be Monday, Tuesday and Thursday, with most employees having the option to work remotely on Wednesday and Friday.
• From SAP they assure that the positive thing is that the employees can organize themselves as they wish, they have the office as an added value; the negative is that the social component of companies is being lost and, now, after two years of the pandemic, when we reach the peak in commitment, which today is at 85%, a small level of fatigue is noticeable in people . SAP is trying to recover the team spirit with playful meetings by departments, workshops and after-work visits.
• Amazon will allow corporate employees to work two days from home. Of course, these two days will be agreed by the management team. In those cases in which you want to telecommute more days, you will have to request a permit from your superior. If this exceptional case is approved, the worker will be considered “primarily a remote worker and will have an agile (non-dedicated) workspace” to collaborate with their team. Meanwhile, “for those who work outside the office is an effective option”, they will be able to work up to four weeks a year completely remotely.
• At ING, reductions in working hours between 2019 and 2021 have been cut in half and 57% less have been requested than before the pandemic, says Isaac Vitini, general director of human resources at the bank, who in June 2020 decided that his 1,400 employees could choose whether to work in the office, at home or anywhere else, on the days they wanted and even at the times that were most convenient for them. He implemented the 100% flexible work model that has allowed his workers to be more engaged than ever with ING, he says.
• At Liberty Seguros, where reductions in working hours have gone from 14% to 8% of the total in a workforce of almost 1,000 people, 60% of whom are women, since they launched à la carte teleworking, explains Beatriz Ortega, head of employee experience in the insurance company. Or at SAP, which also opted for this system based on trust in its team of 1,300 employees, in July 2021. “Since March 2020 we have cut short-time and part-time contracts by more than half. They were few, but many have become full-time contracts, ”explains Alba Herrero, director of human resources for the technology company for Southern Europe and Francophone Africa. “With flexible work, the employee must feel that he does not have to give up either work time or family. And that is a great value”, adds the directive.
The analysis firm Forrester predicts in its predictions for 2022 that one in three companies that initiate a new change towards hybrid work models will fail.”We predict that only 10% of companies will switch to a fully remote model, and 30% will return to a fully face-to-face model,” they predict.
The remaining 60% of companies will switch to a hybrid model, with a third of them failing on their first attempt to work anywhere, according to their analysis.
Why? Because moving to a hybrid model “will cause productivity to plummet and lead executives to question the model rather than the processes they’re clinging to,” according to the firm.
Despite the fact that the omicron variant has returned many workers to their homes, teleworking in Spain has long since lost its highest levels.
The latest report on teleworking from the National Observatory of Technology and Society (ONTSI) of the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Digital Transformation, the percentage of Spaniards who work regularly, the return to face-to-face work was consolidated in the third quarter of 2021.
Specifically, the percentage of employed people who worked from their own home more than half the days was 8%, compared to 9.4% in the second quarter of 2021 and 11.2% in the first. In perspective, the current figure is the lowest since the confinement began, which reached 16.2% in the second quarter of 2020.
Of course, despite the decrease, today teleworking is still almost double that registered before the pandemic, which was 4.8% in December 2019.
However, there are also some professional profiles where telecommuting opportunities will continue to prevail this year. A recent survey by FlexJobs, a portal specialized in remote work, revealed that 58% of respondents said they wanted a fully remote job after the pandemic, despite the fact that 42% also said that their employers will require them to return to a physical office.
The platform has obtained, ordered from highest to lowest growth, the job profiles that offer more remote work options, such as 100% remote and hybrid work agreements, and have the highest projected job growth rate between 2020-2030.
Manuel del Val Managing Director at Green Mowers (Civil Engineer) 