In these times of confinement and social distancing, the world has rediscovered remote working as an effective way to fulfill professional duties without overstepping the health measures in force in many countries of the world. What are the benefits of telecommuting? How to set it up?
Teleworking is an organization of work that consists of fulfilling one's professional obligations outside of the environment usually reserved for this purpose, by means of information and communication technologies.
The benefits of teleworking
The benefits of this organization mode are multiple and very efficient in case of epidemic, pandemic or bad weather conditions. They are :
- More flexible working hours;
- More autonomy and responsibility;
- Better productivity and efficiency in work;
- Better work-life balance;
- Less tiredness and a better quality of life;
- Reduced stress and tiredness due to travel time;
- Savings on transport costs.
The benefits are also very real for your company. These include:
- More flexibility in human resources management;
- Less absenteeism and lateness;
- Reduced overall costs associated with having an employee in the company;
- Employability of people with disabilities;
Less distractions or tension between colleagues;
Greater productivity;
Improvement of employees' working conditions, their motivation and their involvement in the company.
How to set up teleworking?
In principle, telework can be applied to all employees and to all socio-professional categories. However, the reality is different depending on the position held by the worker or his sector of activity.
In a company, an employer can grant telework or not to an employee depending on whether he works in the back office, in the front office or simply according to his position and his importance in the structure.
Telecommuting employees have the same rights and obligations as their office colleagues. They have all the necessary equipment for working at home and the conditions of teleworking are formalized in writing between the employer and the employee. This allows to define the days of telework, the time slots, the meetings... This formalization also allows the employee to weigh some disadvantages linked to telework who can feel isolated and have the feeling to not be able to evolve professionally as well as their colleagues who stayed in the office.
For this system to be effective, communication and information sharing tools must be made available to employees. The basic tool remains a powerful and secure internet connection.
For a good communication, mailboxes, instant messaging and video conferencing applications such as Hangouts, Microsoft Teams, Zoom or Skype are required. Document sharing is also a prerequisite for telecommuting and is possible with applications such as Google Drive, Drop Box or We Transfer.
A link must also exist between the company and its employees. A daily phone call to debrief the day and a mandatory weekly visit to the company help establish discipline and set a framework.
What measures to the African Vie?
With the health crisis we are going through, telecommuting is a possible solution for our company. Nevertheless, options are still being explored to make this way of working a reality in our company.
For the time being, most of the meetings are done through video calls in order to respect the social distancing in force. The mailboxes, point of contact with the company, the clients and the possible providers, are also exploited and can also be used as a calendar to fix professional appointments. Moreover, l'Africaine Vie has a powerful Internet connection that maintains the link between employees and facilitates the sharing of information.
If you want to know more about telecommuting tools, we recommend that you consult article here.
For now, let's respect the barrier measures and take care of ourselves.
By Mélika TCHIAKPE
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