Telework can be considered a flexible form of work organization

In the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020, many mandatory changes were generated in the routine and way of life for all, one of these changes was the way of working, and it was normalized that

workers

work

at

home

, thanks to the technology of these times. After that event there are still

companies

that handle

this

mode of

work

, just connecting from a device

such

as their cell phone or laptop,

thus

generating many advantages in terms of savings in the costs of renting and infrastructure that entails having staff in a plant. But these advantages will be analyzed to understand if

companies

really benefit from the fact that their employees are not in an office under the supervision of a boss.

This

essay will show the impacts presented to

companies

since teleworking and as gained strength, generating controversy in productivity between remote

workers

and those who meet their schedule in offices physically. Teleworking can be considered a flexible form of

work

organization, which consists of the performance of professional activity without the physical presence of the worker in the company during a significant part of his working hours. The term teleworking was first established by scientist Jack Nilles in 1973, when the United States was going through a serious economic crisis

due to

oil, which caused an increase in fuel

thus

making mobility more difficult and complicated to get to

work

offices; as the solution, it was considered that people

work

from

home

,(Nilles,J,1994).

Although

the crisis was quickly resolved, the idea of working from

home

was adopted by

companies

to provide a better balance between the personal and working lives of their employees. ILO reported in 2021 that in advanced countries the number of

workers

under the Teleworking modality doubled from 2005 to 2014.

For instance

, the United States increased from 1,819,355 to approximately 3,677,061 teleworkers. Being the government sector with the highest growth.

On the other hand

, in countries

such

as Canada and Australia,

according to

the aforementioned report,

telework

statistics increased significantly between 2006 and 2012.

Then

, in Europe towards the end of 2010, the figures for

telework

were considerably high. Countries like the Czech Republic stand out with 9%, Denmark with 2.6%, Slovakia with 3.4%, Belgium with 2.2% and the European country that topped the list was the United Kingdom, registering figures of

Telework

for the year 2012 around 12.8%, which means about 3,7 million people. During the pandemic several surveys were conducted to managers, with positive productivity results, An online survey by Ozimek (2020) reveals that 56% of managers perceive

telework

"better than expected". Another poll by Barrero, Bloom and Davis (2021a) confirms

this

finding and claim that

work

from

home

will stick in the future

due to

five main reasons: 1) better-than-expected experience during the pandemic, 2) already paid investments in tangible and intangible capital to enable

telework

(i.e. the fixed cost of establishing

telework

), 3) diminished stigma associated with

this

practice, 4) enduring fear of crowds and contagion risks, and 5) a pandemic-related surge in IT innovations facilitating

telework

and a related increasing productivity of remote

workers

– as

also

emphasised by Davis, Ghent and Gregory (2021). Surveys focusing on the employee’s perspective are

also

positive: Taneja, Bloom and Davis (2021) find a roughly 2% more efficient workforce on a self-reported basis.