• Labor Minister Elisabeth Borne said there would no longer be a “minimum number of days” of teleworking required by the state in companies from Tuesday evening.

  • This way of working should however continue in most companies if they want to satisfy a good part of their employees and remain attractive to new candidates.

    But employees will have to abide by the rules.

  • 20 Minutes

    takes stock with Benoît Serre, Vice-President of the National Association of HRDs.

All back to the office?

At the request of trade unions and employers, the Minister of Labor, Elisabeth Borne, indicated on Monday on BFMTV the end of the "minimum number of days" of teleworking.

This measure, required by the state in companies to fight against the spread of the coronavirus, will end on Tuesday evening.

An announcement that marks the end of an era, while until last June and for more than a year, the rule was to practice telework systematically for all activities that allowed it.

So is the world back in business again?

Not really, according to Benoît Serre, vice-president of the National Association of HRDs (ANDRH) and director of human resources at L'Oréal France.

Does Elisabeth Borne's announcement signify the complete end of teleworking?

No, I think on the contrary that it is the beginning of the “real” teleworking.

Much was said during the pandemic - and rightly so - that forced, mandatory teleworking was fine for some but suffered by others.

The minister's announcement indicates that companies are taking back control of their organization.

At the same time, many company agreements have been signed on teleworking, which will therefore be established on a long-term basis, in a structured and organized manner.

In two or three months, we will realize that this system has become a normal alternative to work.

We can already see this with certain small signals, such as job offers with teleworking in principle, for example.

What part will telework play in the life of companies?

During the first period of Covid-19, it was said a lot that professional life invaded private life.

Now, we need to organize teleworking to prevent private life from invading professional life.

We will therefore have to find a new balance.

We observe that most company agreements provide for two days of teleworking, which is not surprising because at three days, employees spend more time at home than in the office.

It is a kind of common sense mean that has taken hold.

Will telecommuting in the “next world” be like telecommuting in the pandemic?

If we observe that the return to work of employees is going quite well, we also see that people have difficulty admitting that there are constraints related to teleworking.

For eighteen months, it was a little "open bar": everyone did what they wanted, we looked at their phone in the morning and we decided if we came or not.

Now there are going to be rules to follow: declare it before and in some companies, have the manager's agreement.

The difficulty will be to get people to re-enter a normal organizational process.

How to implement this new stage?

There is a very strong expectation from certain employees who, for many, see teleworking as the symbol of management development: more freedom in their organization and confidence, less control ... But some managers are completely lost when they don't have their troops around them.

It will therefore be necessary to manage the impatience of employees, companies need time to change their organization.

The best guarantee that the work lasts over time is precisely that it takes time to set up, taking into account all the constraints of individuals and companies.

It will also be necessary to ensure that the teleworking rules are equivalent from one service to another, so as not to penalize mobility within a company.

We must also not forget the employees who are not interested in this system, and therefore avoid falling into an injunction to telework.

What are the risks of companies totally closed to teleworking?

Teleworking is becoming a normal alternative, so companies, even the most reluctant, will have to switch to it.

Otherwise, they take a risk in terms of their image and their attractiveness.

We are starting to see the appearance of rare or highly sought-after profiles of candidates who require several days of teleworking per week.

On data analyst or digital type profiles, whose job can be done remotely and who are often young, teleworking is not even an option.

If the company refuses them, they will simply go elsewhere.

I understand the reluctance of certain leaders to establish teleworking on a lasting basis, but I believe that no one has a choice.

Health

Coronavirus: Telecommuting in half-groups is the best strategy to avoid a cluster, according to a study

World

Coronavirus: Because of the Delta variant, Facebook postpones the return to the office to January 2022

  • Covid 19

  • Coronavirus

  • Telework

  • Elisabeth Borne

  • Business