TAMARA NASSIF
SÃO PAULO, SP (FOLHAPRESS)
Having internet at home was not a priority for Maria Geralda Pereira, 80, until recently. The installation, however, allowed her granddaughter Laísa Andrade, 30, to visit her in Nova Serrana (MG) without missing her working day. “I’ve been to visit my family several times without stopping working,” says the worker, now a resident of the capital of Rio de Janeiro.
Laísa, a product designer at the company Frete Rápido, works completely remotely, allowing her to perform all her day-to-day functions wherever she is. It’s the “anywhere office” (or office anywhere, in free translation), one of the economy’s lifeboats during the Covid pandemic.
But the end of quarantines put an expiration date on this work model.
Today, despite professionals’ wishes, remote positions like Laísa’s are dwindling in the market, as companies tighten their grip on returning to offices. According to data from LinkedIn Economic Graph, the social network’s analysis arm, 25% of vacancies published there mentioned the possibility of working from home in February this year, including the hybrid format. In the same period last year, it was 39%.
The phenomenon also appears outside. Also according to LinkedIn, 9% of job offers in the United States offered fully remote work in July 2023, compared to 18% in the previous year. The hybrid, there, increased from 8% to 13% on the same basis of comparison.
Even large technology companies – the so-called “Big Techs”, such as Google, Amazon, Apple and even Zoom -, previously vocal about the benefits of working from home, began to require employees to be present in offices at least a few times a week.
The last significant case occurred at the end of August. Amazon CEO Andy Jassy even issued an ultimatum to employees who were reluctant to return in person: “It’s past time to disagree and compromise. And if you can’t do that, Amazon probably won’t work for you” . The e-commerce giant now requires presence in the office at least three days a week.
The explanation for this movement lies in what was previously the greatest asset of remote work: productivity. Research from Stanford University, published in July, points out that fully remote work can be 10% to 20% less efficient depending on the area of activity and how companies prepare for it.
“Companies are no longer able to achieve results targets or act as efficiently”, says Ricardo Basaglia, CEO of PageGroup Brasil, to the report. “And this is a symptom that most of them do not have a clear vision of how to adapt to remote work, so the easiest decision is to return to what is known: face-to-face work.”
He says that, during the pandemic, the productivity of many companies increased precisely due to isolation and concern about not losing their jobs at an extremely delicate time. “People worked 14 hours a day, and this excess work was seen as productivity. But this would never be permanent. Just look at how many workers had their mental health affected.”
With the return of the “old normal”, the balance between personal and professional life was reestablished – and high productivity, obtained at the expense of professionals’ well-being, fell. The consequence was requiring a return to offices, often without making adaptations to maintain work from home in a sustainable way.
This sustainability, according to Basaglia, involves four pillars: organizational culture, leadership preparation, appropriate tools and technologies and clear assignment of responsibilities.
“Does the organizational culture advocate autonomy? Is leadership prepared to manage people remotely? Is the company using and providing appropriate tools for online collaboration? Are roles and responsibilities well defined and do workers know what is expected of them? Without this It’s unlikely to work.”
For Anna Cherubina, MBA professor at FGV (Fundação Getulio Vargas) and specialist in people and career management, there is still one more reason behind the return to offices: the distrust of employers.
According to her, companies are used to “autocratic” management, which values constant supervision. “I notice that many managers are uncomfortable with the remote. They ask themselves: Are people actually working? Is this closed camera in the meeting really due to technical problems or is the person doing something else?”, he says.
“There is still a demand for control, and in the office it is easier to detect disengagement than at home.”
Experts also point out that face-to-face meetings encourage social interactions – often a source of creativity and innovation – and learning, especially among junior employees. But he is not that well-liked by employees.
WAR CAPE
“I would only return to the fully in-person model if I had no other choice,” says Laísa.
Her opinion is echoed across the country. A survey carried out by Infojobs and Grupo Top RH, between April and May this year, showed that more than 85% of professionals who returned to offices full time would change jobs if they could work more days at home.
The attachment makes sense: working from home not only eliminates hours of commuting, but it helps save costs and leads to better time management. For Laísa, it is still synonymous with concentration. “I need silence, few distractions. I work much better that way,” she says.
But, for many companies, demands like these have little – or no – weight in decision-making. On the contrary: the pressure for a fully in-person regime has created a tug of war between employees and employers. The result is a sharp impact on the organizational climate and difficulties in attracting and retaining talent.
“The iron arm indicates that communication and relationships have become frayed, and this has a profound impact on the company’s culture”, says Basaglia, from PageGroup Brasil. “A company’s performance is closely linked to the relationships of trust established with employees.”
For Cherubina, flexibility is the watchword, and companies focused on people need to adapt to the market to avoid losing talent.
And if the demand is for more days at home, the hybrid can be the best of both worlds. The same research from Stanford University that indicates a drop in productivity in the remote model points out that, in the hybrid model, performance is the same -if not better- than in person.
“Combining days at home with days at the office may be the healthiest way to deal with this dilemma”, summarizes Cherubina.
The post Will working from home end? Understand why companies are returning to offices appeared first in Jornal de Brasília.
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