Paris (AFP)

The organization of one's time and pace within and outside the company should be at the heart of working life after the Covid-19 crisis which saw inequalities widen further between employees, in the opinion of several specialists.

Back to the office, resumption of activity, reunion with colleagues in a meeting, in the canteen or around a drink: the Week for the quality of life at work, which opens on Monday, comes at the right time when alleviate the constraints linked to the epidemic situation.

Since a national inter-professional agreement of 2013, the quality of life at work is defined "as a feeling of well-being at work perceived collectively and individually" and this can encompass the atmosphere, working conditions, autonomy, equality, recognition ...

During the crisis, Pascal Ughetto, specialist in the organization of work and professor at the Gustave-Eiffel University, conducted interviews on the relationship of employees to their work with "a striking point: aspirations for more rhythm of life. appeased "including teleworking, less transport and more time for oneself.

"Companies should expect that individuals seek to assert their personal choices in terms of organizing their work week," said the researcher.

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For the architect and work psychologist Élisabeth Pélegrin-Genel, "the real well-being will be to show that you can work elsewhere than in the office. This allows other modes of existence, to live a little more. far for a better quality of life ".

- The company at home -

"There will continue to be a hybrid work: at home or in a third place and in the company because it is essential to come back to the office for the social bond. Relations with colleagues are the first element of the quality of life at work ", insists Odile Duchenne, CEO of Actineo, observatory of the quality of life in the office.

"Companies will reallocate their space with more places for meetings, brainstorming, and festive moments."

Economist Stéphane Carcillo, head of the Employment and Income division at the OECD, notes that "working time was used a lot during the crisis to adjust", with massive recourse in Europe to short-time work and teleworking , and this will have consequences for management.

"When some of the work is done at home, you judge the results more than the means, it's a matter of trust."

However "French companies practiced relatively little trust management. It will become problematic to regulate the new balances", estimates Pascal Ughetto, at a time when teleworking has diluted a little more the border between private and professional life.

"Before, HRDs wanted us to feel at home in the company. Now, the company is at home," notes labor sociologist Danièle Linhart, research director at CNRS.

"It is important that workers can decide for themselves when they can telecommute with the possibility of going back. It should not be forced."

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According to a survey by the National Association of Human Resources Directors (ANDRH), a quarter of the 96,500 company agreements signed in 2020 concerned teleworking.

Not concerned by teleworking, overexposed, professions in contact with and serving the public, in trade, logistics, transport, cleanliness, have emerged from their "invisibility" during this crisis.

For them, Danièle Linhart hopes "that this heroism will make it possible to negotiate better working conditions".

Stéphane Carcillo insists on "heterogeneity" and the inequalities generated by the Covid-19 crisis in the world of work.

"In 2020, among the least qualified, one in five employees teleworked, one in two among the most qualified".

The economist expects that "developments in the world of work will be more favorable ... for those who already had good, well-paid jobs".

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