The chosen teleworking, the new standard of the company?
Audio 03:28
Telecommuting has become the norm for many sectors since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, but the right to disconnect has not followed this trend.
Here, an employee and her cat in Sassenheim, the Netherlands on October 2, 2020 © REUTERS / Eva Plevier
By: Dominique Baillard Follow
8 mins
Today in France is the last day of forced telework for health reasons.
As of tonight, the government is lifting this obligation on businesses;
However, the practice will not disappear, on the contrary, employees are asking for more.
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By generalizing work at home, the pandemic has granted the sometimes unconscious wish of millions of employees around the world.
Even when the constraints were strong, with the presence of children, in cramped apartments, sometimes inefficient computer equipment, the conversion was carried out at an ultra fast speed with disconcerting ease, in France as in all the countries which have opted for this organization because of the confinement.
So much so that today, many employees want to adopt it definitively, at least a few days a week.
Are employers enthusiastic about this change?
They are quite divided.
In
start-ups
and in large companies, this is obvious.
Some even think of making an argument to facilitate recruitment.
The automaker Stellantis or the pharmaceutical group Novartis have taken the lead and have already signed agreements with the unions to speed up the implementation.
But many bosses are still reluctant.
They will however have to adapt, even in the most cautious companies, the subject is topical this fall, difficult to impose on its staff the permanent presence on the site when it has demonstrated its ability to perform the same task at distance.
A feared loss of productivity
This is indeed one of their fears. Prospective studies carried out long before the appearance of the Covid show, on the contrary, that productivity increases when working at home, without the fatigue of transport. The recent experience carried out for 18 months tends to confirm this hypothesis even if the figures are still unreliable: some employees at home have worked more out of professional conscience, others have also inflated their results. Remote work can also be an advantage for companies, they expect savings by reducing the size of their building stock. If the company is overall a winner, its immediate environment, that of businesses excluded from teleworking, cafes, restaurants, will however suffer, they will lose some of their customers. Ultimately,this change will therefore have significant consequences on the economy and the environment of cities, with repercussions on transport, real estate and trade.
Is the employee always a winner?
In France, the employee does not have to fear a drop in his salary as is already the case in the United States where the internet giants use this threat to force their employees to return to the office.
But he can lose out on his installation costs, which are not always sufficiently covered by his company.
This is why even in the societies most favorable to teleworking, the unions remain reserved and vigilant.
But in terms of quality of life, work outside the company is popular.
This organization is not given to everyone.
Teleworking cannot be generalized ad infinitum.
Only about one in three jobs is affected.
IN SHORT
In China, factories have been idling this summer, industrial activity has never been so low since the start of the pandemic.
An indicator that reminds us that the Covid threat is still very present in the first country affected by the coronavirus.
The recent proliferation of the Delta variant has dampened the optimism of Chinese entrepreneurs, they have restricted their orders, hence the very noticeable slowdown in August according to figures released today.
Note that in Japan, industrial production is also in free fall for the month of July, due to the shortage of semiconductors.
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