Since the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic working from home has become the norm
for millions of workers in the EU and worldwide. Early estimates from Eurofound (2020)
suggest that close to 40% of those currently working in the EU began to telework fulltime
as a result of the pandemic. A recent JRC study provides a rough estimation of around
25% of employment in teleworkable sectors in the EU as a whole. Considering that before
the outbreak just 15% of the employed in the EU had ever teleworked, large numbers of
workers and employers alike are, in all probability, facing challenges in dealing with the
sudden shift to telework. The extent of these difficulties, however, is likely to vary
considerably, depending among other factors on the level of prior experience with
telework.
In fact, as of 2019, only 5.4% of employed in the EU-27 usually worked from home – a
share that remained rather constant since 2009. However, over the same period, the
share of employed working at least sometimes from their homes increased from 5.2% in
2009 to 9% in 2019. Working from home was considerably more common among the
selfemployed than dependent employees, although it increased in a similar way for both
categories over the past decade. In 2019, almost 36% of the self-employed was
sometimes or usually working from home in the EU-27, up from 30% in 2009. The
prevalence of telework among dependent employees was just above 11% in 2019, up
from 7.5% in 2009 (source: Eurostat LFS).
The COVID-19 pandemic has placed flexible work arrangements, especially telework, in
the spotlight. With many states issuing stay-at-home orders and allowing only essential
businesses to keep their physical locations open, unprepared employers were forced to
implement flexible work options on the fly.
As companies continue to shift to remote
work models, they depend on solutions that enable them to do business seamlessly and
efficiently and to implement these solutions by engaging in more flexible work solutions.
Eventually, social distancing orders will be lifted, and businesses will reopen; however,
employee requests for flexible hours and remote-work arrangements will be part of the
new normal.
Now that many employers have experienced how successful telecommuting can be for
their organization or how work hours that differ from the normal 9-to-5 can be adopted
without injury to productivity, offering flexible work arrangements may become even
more commonplace.
Therefore, even in the absence of a pandemic, flexible work arrangements can improve
recruitment and retention efforts, augment organizational diversity efforts, encourage
ethical behaviour and help the organization’s efforts to be socially responsible.
Employers can experience cost savings, improved attendance and productivity, and an
increase in employee engagement.