Caddress in a Parisian banking services company, Jérôme (1) is “unhappy”. Since 2021, this native of Bordeaux has had two days of teleworking per week. A breath of fresh air for the forty-year-old who, every day, spends more than an hour on public transport commuting to work. Alas, in recent months, his management has decided to only grant him one day of remote work per week.
“For me, such a decision is not coherent, not progressive! During Covid, we realized that teleworking worked. So why try to limit it? »
“At home, I do the same work, I have the same access to data, I am more concentrated because I am less dispersed in discussions with colleagues, I can extend my days without having to tell myself that it is time that I come back to join my family, he lists. For me, such a decision is not coherent, not progressive! During Covid, we realized that teleworking worked. So why try to limit it? »
Renegotiation of agreements
This incomprehension is shared by tens of thousands of employees, and undoubtedly a few more, in France and around the world. Four years after the health crisis linked to Covid-19 which led companies that could to establish, constrained and forced, teleworking measures, a vast global movement, initiated by the American tech giants, tends to drastically limit the practical or even to eliminate it.
In mid-September, Amazon announced the complete end of teleworking for its teams. The video game company Ubisoft will now require at least three face-to-face days per week. Since 2023, Google, Apple, X (formerly Twitter), Tesla, Disney, OpenAI and Meta have, to varying degrees, tightened the screws on their employees. And France is not left out: companies have already reversed course – Publicis, Superproof… – and many others would consider doing the same, whether at L’Oréal, Safran, Vinci, Orange or Bouygues…
“In 2020, teleworking took hold a little wildly. We had a fairly long phase of experimentation and today, companies want to establish rules”
Why such a fundamental movement? The first reason is primarily regulatory. In 2021, after the Covid ordeal, “many companies have chosen to enter into teleworking agreements with unions”, recalls Benoît Serre, vice-president of the National Association of Human Resources Directors (ANDRH) . However, these agreements are three-year and renegotiations are scheduled for this year. “In 2020, teleworking has taken hold a little wildly,” continues Benoît Serre. We had a fairly long phase of experimentation and, today, companies want to establish rules. This is not a step backwards but a structuring, and this is the best way for this to continue to exist in the long term. »
« [Avec le télétravail] attachment to the company and corporate culture are undermined because people do not know each other, do not see each other. A company without people in it doesn’t exist”
“Corporate culture”
So what do bosses criticize about the practice of teleworking? The problem obviously does not come from a possible drop in the performance of the home worker: “Individual productivity in teleworking has been studied and we realized that it is no different from that in person,” admits Benoît Tight. According to him, “collective productivity”, on the other hand, suffers from the distance between the members of a team: “When people do not see each other, do not work together, they exchange less, it harms coherence, efficiency… Also attachment to the company and corporate culture are undermined because people do not know each other, do not see each other. A company without people in it doesn’t exist. »
Claire Estagnasié, doctoral student specializing in new forms of organization and work practices at the Gredeg-CNRS laboratory at Côte-d’Azur University, in Nice, puts forward another explanation: “The real argument to explain this decline in teleworking, it is that of a loss of control by management, who want to have control over what is done, she assures. It can be a little scary for a chef not to see what is happening in the physical sense of the term. »
If teleworking is not unanimous among employees, some suffering from a feeling of isolation when they are cut off from office life, while those who have taken a liking to it regret this return to the past: “A majority of employees appreciate teleworking, observes Claire Estagnasié. People are looking for flexibility. “Five days a week at the office” is outdated. » According to the Statista polling institute, “33% of French employees practiced teleworking at least once a week in 2023”, and “around 80%” of them estimated that “teleworking has a positive impact on their lives professional and personal.
(1) The first name has been changed.
