Europe 1 with AFP 4:41 p.m., May 16, 2022

Adopted massively during the Covid-19 pandemic, telework improved the productivity of companies.

This is confirmed by the report of the National Productivity Council (CNP) published today, which estimates that teleworkers would generate a long-term productivity gain of 5 to 9%.

Deployed massively during the Covid-19 pandemic, telework can boost business productivity in the long term if it continues to be so widespread, underlines the National Productivity Council (CNP) in a report published on Monday.

“Unlike many other previous crises which led to a slowdown in trend productivity, the acceleration of the use of teleworking linked to the health crisis could ultimately lead to a lasting gain in productivity”, advances the organization attached to Matignon.

Improved productivity

A one-point increase in the percentage of teleworking employees “would improve overall factor productivity on average by around 0.45%”, write the authors, who are based on a study by the Banque de France.

"By extrapolating this result to the overall level of the French economy, the increase in the proportion of teleworkers from around 5% in the pre-Covid period (4% of regular teleworkers in 2019, editor's note) to 25% in the longer term " would lead to an average gain in productivity of 5 to 9%.

But beware, "this is a first estimate, which deserves to be confirmed by other studies once the teleworking situation has stabilized", warns the CNP.

Boosted by the pandemic, the percentage of employees teleworking has indeed fluctuated according to the confinements and the easing of health restrictions.

A "hybrid" week

"37% of employees experienced it, regularly or not, between March 2020 and January 2021", details the CNP.

But in November 2021, only 21% of employees said they worked remotely at least one day a week.

In addition, it is necessary to know how to dose the use of teleworking, underlines the CNP, so that “its positive effects on the efficiency of the workers outweigh the losses.”

According to an OECD survey cited by the report, the optimal frequency of remote work would be "between two and three days a week".

A “hybrid” way of working which complicates the task of managers challenged to reconcile the advantages of teleworking (reduction of costs and travel times in particular) and their disadvantages (reduction of interactions between employees).