why does it divide employees and businesses so much?

Since the Covid pandemic, teleworking has become part of our daily lives. More than one in four French people work regularly from home, to the point that some bosses want to go back.

Tuesday October 15, 2024, several strike pickets were held in front of the various Ubisoft studios. It was an email sent to all employees in mid-September that ignited the situation. The management of the video game publisher asks its employees at least three days of presence in the office every week. A way to “stimulate creativity and make decisions more effectively”.

In short, it is time to partially return to face-to-face work. Inconceivable for Marc, solidarity union representative at Ubisoft, 100% teleworking. The practice is, according to the trade unionist, comparable to paid leave or hours, a “social achievement”.

Better supervision of teleworking

Several companies put a brake on teleworking, including in the United States. Americans talk about “RTO” (“Return to the Office” or “return to the office in French”). Companies are returning to the all-office. Amazon, Tesla, the JP Morgan bank or even more recently, and it is a symbol, Zoom, which allows remote meetings with its application, says stop remote working.

In France, everything is at stake at the moment because we are arriving at the period of renewal of company agreements, obligatory in the largest of them. The trend is indeed a reduction in size. At L'Oréal and AXA, it is now two days a week with prior authorization from the manager.

In the Bouygues group, remote Fridays are now limited to avoid deserted offices. Finally, some companies prohibit remote work right before and right after the holidays. The idea, in fact, is to better regulate teleworking, implemented somewhat urgently, four years ago.

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