A click for teleworking
With the global health crisis of COVID-19, we have witnessed the closure of business premises due to mandatory national stay-at-home lockdowns. Mandatory closures that have forced companies to reinvent themselves to maintain their activity. According to a survey by La Tribune, nearly 40% of active French people were confronted during these two months of confinement with this new method of working, i.e. around 8 million people. Among them, 9 out of 10 say they want to continue even after the pandemic. Indeed, this innovative model offers many advantages that companies and employees want to take advantage of.
- So, in the light of the latest events but also of the surveys of teleworkers, can it be argued that teleworking, beyond having been a seasonal necessity, has now become the norm and even the future of work?
Teleworking, a new phenomenon?
Teleworking consists of an employee carrying out his professional activity partly or entirely remotely from the premises of his company, which usually constitute his place of work. To do so, the assets have recourse to modern technological tools in order to maintain good communication within the company. If telecommuting has become so popular recently, it was neither misunderstood nor depreciated before. In particular, it has spread over the past few years with globalization, which has led to a wave of outsourcing among large groups . Indeed, companies have tended to transfer certain skills to subcontractors , generally at the other end of the world in developing countries, for the sake of savings. For example, Unilever deals with an Indian company for the development of websites for its various brands. The teams from each country are therefore collaborating remotely with India, and have been for several years already. In addition, some companies have been pioneers in the organization of remote work for their employees, in particular with the aim of guaranteeing their well-being . For example, Engie has been offering its employees two days a week of telecommuting for several years now, which nearly 30% of its workforce was still doing until early 2020. (see our report)
Indeed, distance management offers advantages:
- Less time wasted in traffic jams to get to work, especially during strikes and demonstrations
- More schedule flexibility
- More autonomy for the different collaborators
- More comfort and calm
- More closeness with loved ones, which makes professional activity more conducive to family life
Many companies have certainly resumed part-time work on the premises, but we are expecting 2 other waves of resumption of physical work:
- First in September 2020 , in the form of an early return, which explains the particular and unique format for each company which is currently being considered and implemented: many employees are not very favorable to returning to the site , which is why the companies offer a hybrid formula . This consists of dividing the work between remote and face-to-face. This is what tends to be practiced when entering secondary schools. This makes it possible to combine the advantages of teleworking mentioned above with physical proximity to colleagues.
- The second will take place in January 2021 , for many employees of foreign companies. Indeed, they must establish a single global recovery plan , involving several countries with disparate health situations and laws, which makes the task complex and thus imposes extended deadlines. Here again, although this date remains distant and uncertain, it seems that the hybrid model is the solution envisaged and this, in the long term.
Thus, millions of employees will have spent more than two months teleworking in 2020. Fortunately, teleworking is generally quite comfortable, especially since most companies have managed to provide their employees with all the necessary equipment. and all the equipment possible to guarantee them, even from a distance, pleasant working conditions. Thus, large groups such as Unilever or Orange have allowed their employees to reserve time slots to return to the premises and collect their usual belongings: personal effects, comfortable work chairs, quality screens, lamps, etc.
In addition, some employers have decided to encourage their teams to remain dynamic during this period of confinement by offering them a teleworking salary bonus. We have also seen the emergence of internal company learning platforms , encouraging employees to participate in online training, which allows them not only to strengthen their expertise, but also to develop their versatility by being interested in themes other than their strict daily activity.
How to work well remotely?
However, you must not fall into certain traps of working from home, indeed it is sometimes difficult to resist the temptation of surrounding distraction and the comfort of your home, which some people are sometimes tempted to take advantage of, enjoying a certain freedom thanks to the distance and the absence of hierarchical superiors. Here are some tips for staying focused and productive: first of all, it is important to create a space strictly dedicated to work, both sufficientlycomfortableto spend the day there but alsoprofessionalin the event of a video call with colleagues or superiors. It is therefore not recommended to stand in front of a window because it can be a source of distraction and the light will not be optimal for videoconferences. In addition, certain temptations such as his telephone, for example, can sometimes be formidable in the face ofconcentrationand theproductivity, hence the need to put your non-work devices in airplane mode or leave them in another room until the break. This leads us to another piece of advice, which is to separate your private life and leisure from your professional life: hence the need first toisolate, but also to establish aregular schedule, even a routine, weekly or daily, because, if the schedules are certainly flexible, it is important to keep alifestylesimilar to the usual so as not to encroach on his personal life. Thus, it is important to fix your times for waking up or eating, for example, but above all for breaks: it is recommended to take 15 minutes approximately every 2 hours to air your head or stretch and stretch your legs his working position.
People who don’t like teleworking mostly agree that it’s because of thelack of human contact. If some are delighted to be rid of their annoying colleagues, others, obviously more fortunate in their entourage, regret them. Not only in terms of social well-being, it is also essential from the point of view of a so-called working methodagile, ofto stay in contactas much as possible with his colleagues. To do this, it is necessary to master professional communication tools such asSlackfor example and to opt for collaborative work platforms such asMicrosoft Teams. The best way to combine everything is to make ameetingevery day, even short, in videoconference with all his team and to present in turn his current occupations, his progress but also to share hisissuesor possibleproblematic. For this, the softwareKanban Flowis recommended because it allows you to organize yourself easily and concretely and to give your colleagues and superiors a clear and instant overview of where you are with your work. As a team, to progress effectively in the tasks, the best way is to work in sprints: it is a question of defining a period generally 2 weeks but which can go up to a month during which it is a question of establishing a plan of action with the objectives to be met and the distribution of the actions to be carried out to achieve them. Once the period has elapsed, the team meets during a videoconference for a review and then prepares a new plan for the next 2 weeks. This method is effective and adopted by most companies because it allows thecommunication, THEgroup follow-upand setting deadlines, which ismotivatingand keeps theteam spiriteven remotely.
With the new multiscalar constraints we face today, we can predict that remote work will intensify in the coming years. The sooner companies know how to react and include this new working method in their operations, the better they will function in the future because they know how to detach themselves from the various constraints:
- Sanitary
- Environmental
- Governmental
- border
- Societal
- Economic
ESCadrille supports you in this transition
At Escadrille Toulouse Junior Conseil, it is our 42 years of experience that have taught us resilience and above all constant innovation , so that we know how to adapt to each project in order to provide the best possible support. If you or your company are planning to permanently convert your employees to telework, do not hesitate to contact us for our Human Resources service of Social Climate Audit or for our Digital Transformation service. As students, we are at the forefront of technologies which allows us to master the most effective collaborative and communication tools, but also to offer you the latest management methods, while knowing how to adapt them to your team and to your your structure to increase efficiency and, above all, guarantee the well-being of your employees.