The number of job openings has tripled
Will working from home become a new trend?
Our reporter Dai Lili
The new crown epidemic has pressed the fast-forward button for digital office, and more and more enterprises have begun to adopt remote home office methods.
Is this just an emergency, or will it become a new digital office trend after the epidemic?
Over 90% of respondents want to work from home at least 1 day a week
Zhaopin and the National Development Institute of Peking University recently released the "Report on the Development of Remote Home Office in China".
The report shows that nearly 60% of job seekers are more satisfied with the experience of working remotely from home, and 40% say there are pros and cons to each.
Even without considering the epidemic, over 90% of job seekers still hope to work remotely from home at least 1 day a week, and 50% of job seekers hope to work from home at least 3 days a week.
During the epidemic, the number of remote work-from-home positions increased significantly, doubling rapidly during the 2020 Spring Festival epidemic.
Half a year later, the epidemic eased, and the number of recruits still reached three times the level before the epidemic, and the peak period reached five times the level before the epidemic.
Words such as "telecommuting", "working from home" and "working from home" are increasingly appearing in job advertisements.
Among cities, Beijing continues to lead in the number of remote home office jobs posted.
Among different positions, the Internet, digital, monolithic, and knowledge-based industries occupy the main position for remote home office job recruitment.
The proportion of remote home office jobs in the culture, media, entertainment, sports, and financial industries has also risen rapidly after the epidemic eased, and will continue to grow in 2021.
Explore a 13% improvement in home office employee performance
In fact, foreign Internet companies such as Amazon, Microsoft, Google, and Apple have launched a hybrid office model, turning the option of remote home office into a normalized mechanism.
In China, there are also pioneers in remote home office.
As early as 2010, Liang Jianzhang, chairman of Ctrip's board of directors, advocated the launch of a mixed office experiment for customer service personnel. The results showed that "working from home" improved employees' performance by 13%, employees had higher satisfaction, and the job turnover rate dropped by 50%. .
In August 2021, Ctrip launched a new round of trials involving 1,612 employees, including about 400 supervisors.
The functions are mainly based on the core function of the Internet company - product research and development, and business and functional departments are also involved.
The results show that after nearly half a year of experiments, employees' willingness to participate has increased by nearly 60%, and the turnover rate has dropped by about 1/3 without a significant impact on performance.
On February 14 this year, Ctrip announced the implementation of a hybrid office system across the company.
Starting from March 1, every Wednesday and Friday, the company's various business departments and functional departments can implement or gradually implement a 1-2 day mixed office according to their needs.
Eligible employees can choose their own office location, which can be home, coffee shop or resort hotel, etc.
"We did not find that it had a big impact on individual performance or the achievement of the overall goals of the business unit." A person in charge of Ctrip's air ticket business group found that the mixed office system is also very helpful to employee satisfaction and happiness, which is easy to retain Live in excellent employees and improve the problem of brain drain.
Liang Jianzhang said that the promotion of the mixed office system will help reduce traffic congestion, protect the environment, and alleviate high housing prices and regional differences in big cities.
Liang Jianzhang is also a population economist. He believes that the introduction of this round of mixed office system naturally also takes into account the positive impact on women's career development and fertility increase.
"Hybrid office is becoming a global trend. This will have a profound impact on China's society and economy," said Liang Jianzhang.
Viewpoint Flexible office is the future development direction of the workplace
Guo Sheng, CEO of Zhaopin Recruitment Group, believes that behind the form of working from home is the transformation of traditional workplace relationships and management models under the development of technology.
In the long run, "flexible office" with home office as one of the main forms will be the future development direction of the workplace.
Guo Sheng analyzed that at present, enterprises are not only under cost pressure, facing the risks brought by the epidemic, but also facing the issue of how to mobilize the initiative of employees.
Some domestic enterprises have officially launched the remote home office model, which is more of a choice for enterprises in special times.
However, remote office puts forward higher requirements for systematization of management, standardization of processes, and digitalization of operations, and many enterprises still do not have the relevant capabilities.
For companies in Beijing, working from home presents both opportunities and challenges.
For example, the benefits of working from home in terms of saving office rents and operating costs are obvious, and employee productivity and loyalty to the company may not drop but rise.
However, for most traditional industries and large and medium-sized enterprises, the adoption rate of remote home office in actual production activities is very low, reflecting the limitations and practical resistance of remote home office.
In companies that are suitable for telecommuting, working from home is difficult to provide decision makers with the necessary information, and it is difficult to make accurate cost-benefit assessments.
Working from home may bring about a decrease in employees' salaries, fewer opportunities for promotion, no social atmosphere for colleagues in the company, and a lack of constraints on the company's working environment, which will have an impact on employees, and then indirectly affect the company.
"Bringing freedom and creativity to make work and life better is the core value of telecommuting from home. Enterprises need to make changes in employment relations, management models, and corporate culture at the same time, so that telecommuting from home can truly be useful for us. Benefit." Guo Sheng said.