Telecommuting: challenge or opportunity?

With the irruption of the COVID19 crisis, the labour market has had to adapt with varying degrees of difficulty to the new work contingencies.

The telecommuting model has emerged as a solution to avoid paralysing business activity. However, adapting the organisation of work to this new environment presents several challenges but also brings certain advantages.

Nadine Yahchouchi, director of Microsoft 365, says that “the crisis is an accelerator of tomorrow’s office”. Indeed, according to experts, the Covid 19 crisis has accelerated in two months a trend that would have established itself naturally in the next 5 years. In this new environment, technology has become indispensable to ensure productivity. Ranstad anticipates that it will change 30% of jobs and generate new job opportunities.

Companies will see a reduction in the cost of office space and infrastructure, but will have to assume the tools and mechanisms of telecommuting because and their degree of digital transformation is very asimetric.

One of the challenges they will have to face is data protection and cybersecurity. Brussels has warned that cybercrime has increased since the beginning of confinement. Telecommuting involves a high demand for information technology and many companies are not prepared to face cyber attacks. Protecting sensitive data has become a major issue for everyone.

On the employee side, opinions are rather favourable. A survey of international companies conducted by Colliers International in March revealed that 82% of respondents would like to telecommute one or more days a week after the confinement. With this in mind, Jack Dorsey, founder of Twitter announced that he would maintain teleworking for employees who would like to do so.

For better or worse, it seems that teleworking has been installed as a durable solution.

A.G.