"With the health crisis of spring 2020, imposing first the confinement and then the restrictions of access to professional premises in order to avoid the contagion of Covid-19 as much as possible, teleworking has imposed itself for many as the only solution allowing to ensure a continuity of activity. While it only concerned about 7% of the French workforce before the crisis, it has become familiar to a large number of them. In March 2021, about a quarter of employees were fully telecommuting. Eighteen months later, telecommuting has become consolidated, organized, and established in the landscape. As the crisis recedes, the question arises as to what will happen to telework when it is fully up and running.
Based on a roundtable discussion with several experts in the Senate, the Senate Foresight Delegation identified eight questions on the future of telework. The delegation's answers are accompanied by a series of recommendations.
Can we all be teleworkers in 2050?
The answer is clearly negative for the three rapporteurs of the delegation for prospective studies: Céline Boulay-Espéronnier, Cécile Cukierman, and Stéphane Sautarel: " a still significant part of the work cannot be carried out at a distance. At best, half of the active population could be concerned by telework in France. In addition, we will not telework all the time and will probably alternate face-to-face and remote work". The rapporteurs recommend that regular surveys be carried out to determine the number of employees and the precise methods of deployment of telework in companies and administrations, and to measure its effects on the various categories of workers.Will economic growth be stimulated by telecommuting?
"The prospects for productivity gains are not guaranteed, but they are likely once telework is well organized within companies and administrations.The senators recommend the establishment of a telework observatory to "analyze good practices, but also cases of failure" and "build step by step a reference system that would be useful to all".
Can telework lead to new relocations?
The reporters do not believe that telework can lead to further relocation. " Telework does not necessarily change the situation, especially since the most teleworkable jobs are the most qualified ones, for which there is a worldwide shortage. The real risk is that of a relocation of teleworkers, who, "for tax reasons or simply for personal preference, could increase their mobility to the detriment of their presence in France".The senators nevertheless recommend that France's residential attractiveness be preserved "to make our country a land of welcome rather than of exile for teleworkers ".
Can telework be a social advance?
The parliamentarians warn that while it brings new risks that need to be managed, telework, when chosen and negotiated, widens the range of possibilities offered to employees. It could even become one of the criteria for assessing corporate social responsibility (CSR), "in order to encourage the search for the social well-being of teleworkers", they argue .Can telecommuting have a major impact on our living spaces and mobility?
Finally, while it is still too early to proclaim the revenge of the countryside and the end of traffic jams, a relocation movement may be set in motion and flourish in the years to come, particularly for the benefit of a winning rurality, the report predicts.In order to prepare for this change, the authors consider it useful to anticipate the arrival of new teleworkers in the territories through various investments: third places, installation of fiber, maintenance of local public services, infrastructures of leisure and social places, help for the construction of adapted housing. In large urban areas, it would be appropriate to encourage the conversion of office space into housing or to make it more modular. At the same time, it is essential to anticipate new ways of getting around, by reorganizing the public transport offer and accelerating the transition from vehicle ownership to shared use, the information report advocates.
Can telecommuting improve our environment?
"Telework, by reducing travel, contributes to the transition towards the decarbonization of our economies. But it makes it even more essential to control our digital footprint. According to the reporters, it would be appropriate " to encourage the reuse and sharing of digital objects to avoid over-equipping companies and households".Does telecommuting make us too dependent on computer tools?
"We need to have the right IT tools to make the teleworking experience a success. Better equipped and trained teleworkers will be better able to face the new digital risks that will have to be mastered". It would be advisable to complete the deployment of digital infrastructures such as the fiber on all the territories, not to create white zones of telework, but also to train more in the jobs of cybersecurity and to encourage data centers located on the national territory, to secure the data".Is telecommuting a universal prospect?
"We have more and more powerful tools to work, study and exchange at a distance. Telecommuting is part of history. However, human beings are social animals who need direct exchanges, which may be less likely to take place at work and will therefore need to find new frameworks. It is up to organizations to " transform management methods to make them more trust-based. A training effort for managers, especially middle management, will be necessary".Référence :
