After several years of advances and setbacks, Teleworking has beaten historical maximums in Spain, even exceeding the figures of 2020 and 2021, periods of pandemic and postpandemics. This is noted by the latest Active Population Survey (EPA), published by the National Statistics Institute (INE) last July: 15.4% of Spanish employees work from their homes occasionally or more than half of the days of the labor week. These figures involve a stabilization of teleworking, through a hybrid model that combines it with face -to -face. However, there is still a digitalization effort and a change in business culture so that remote employment in Spain – where SMEs represent 99.8% of the business fabric – is implemented in an effective way.
Learning period
The Covid pandemia forced to establish teleworking immediately and the following years have meant a learning period. As Patricia Tisner, director of the University Master’s Office of RRHH’s Management of the International University of La Rioja (UNIR) explains, «this time has served so that some companies have realized what this teleworking is, so that others were perfecting a model in which they had already been working, and so that, as a society, we understood that the business culture of the face -to -face was not being the most productive in some cases.» Always taking into account that not all jobs are likely to be remote, the conversion of the face -to -face model to telematic has brought benefits for companies and workers. According to the report Teleworking and Flexibility 2025, prepared by the consultant Robert Walters for Spain, seven out of 10 employees considers that the performance of their work has improved thanks to teleworking. The same study reveals that the hybrid model that combines two days of teleworking and three of the face -to -face is preferred by companies and workers. These figures show that teleworking should be conceived as part of the business strategy, according to Mila Pérez, head professor of the Management Department at Deusto Business School. «It should not be considered as an incentive for the worker, it is one of the mistakes that have been made so far,» he says. More information about, there are certain challenges for their correct implementation such as the confidence of the companies towards their employees, explains Guillermo Julio Sáez, responsible for the Talent, Compensation and Market Studies of Robert Walters. «Many companies continue to be distrustful towards the remote work of their employees and impose a face -to -face that makes no sense, based on silence, where they cannot be related to each other. That is not at all productive,» says Sáez. «In the same way, you are losing a magnificent opportunity to capture talent, that is, people from other autonomous communities who cannot work face -to -face for the cost of moving to live to the office place,» he adds.
A new culture
The strengthening of a productive teleworking model has to be accompanied by a change in business culture. «And this implies training small entrepreneurs in their mentality about the face -to -face and how to lead remotely,» says Eva Rimbau, professor of the Economics and Business Studies of the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya (UOC). Robert Walters’s report also points to the difficulty in managing telematically, pointing to communication, distancing and problems to evaluate performance as the main reasons. «These are issues that will be resolved with digitalization. Many SMEs do not yet have a plan for it or, if they are already implementing it, they lack time to reach effective fees,» explains Rimbau, who also believes that a legislative change is needed. “The current law [Ley10/2021, de 9 de julio, de trabajo a distancia] Incentives Teleworking once a week, but at the same time it does not force companies to adapt the workplaces of their employees if this modality is not carried out more than a third of the work week; And this condition, with one day, is not met, ”he adds. For Patricia Tisner, efforts must also go through the human resources departments of the companies.“ In the case that they have them, their work must be to promote a type of employees capable of teleworking, monitoring so that there is no disconnection with the company and takes care of the possibility of promoting, ”says the expert to unite. In any case, in any case, and as Guillermo Sáez sums up That the teleworking works and consolidates in a company, «a common policy for all, managers and workers must be created, which is framed within a strategic project that makes sense for the business.»
Teleworking or time flexibility?
According to the report Teleworking and Flexibility 2025, by the consultant Robert Walters, 80% of the workers consulted would accept less salary in exchange for greater time flexibility or teleworking. As Mila Pérez, head of the Department of Management at Deusto Business School points out, do not confuse time flexibility with teleworking. «They are two different options with a different impact on the worker and, therefore, should not be contemplated in the same company policies,» adds Pérez. Consultants such as Robert Walters work to show companies as this type of alternative models to rigid face -to -face entails economic benefits. As his head of talent, compensation and market studies, Guillermo Julio Sáez, “is a matter of not wasteing talent, not losing the possibility of hiring a person of great value for your company due to the imposition of starting the day at a certain time when that employee may need time flexibility or teleworking to reconcile. In the adaptation they all win,” he concludes.
