teleworking

The countries of the Persian Gulf have adopted an unexpected civil protection measure against Iran’s attacks: teleworking

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When an employee in Riyadh receives an email from his company telling him not to come to the office the next day, the most common reason was usually a sandstorm, construction work, or a holiday. In recent weeks, the reason has been something else: the possibility that its offices, probably located in a downtown financial district, could become Iranian missile target. In the Persian Gulf, teleworking has ceased to be a post-pandemic convenience and has become a civil protection tool in the midst of a geopolitical crisis that has been repeated in Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait and Bahrain since the start of the armed conflict between the US, Israel and Iran. Riyadh: the most visible offices, the first to be emptied. According to published Reutersseveral Western and Saudi companies in Riyadh this week expanded their teleworking recommendations via email or text message sent to their employees. The notices focused on employees working in the King Abdullah financial district, Faisaliah Tower, Business Gate and Laysen Valley, areas where major US banks, technology companies such as Microsoft and Apple, and the Saudi sovereign wealth fund itself are based. The arguments for adopting this measure were not unfounded. Iran threatened to attack American interests in the region in retaliation and, in fact, attacked several Amazon data centers in United Arab Emirates. The order to telework does not mean that this simple measure will keep the civilian population safe, but it does distance them from the international offices occupied by American companies. The Arab Emirates were the first to adopt teleworking. The United Arab Emirates were, in fact, the first in ordering teleworking for its employees, immediately after Iran’s first attacks. According to published the local newspaper Khaleej Times, The Ministry of Human Resources and Emiratization asked private companies to adopt teleworking as a precautionary measure, keeping only workers whose physical presence was essential in their jobs. In those first attacks, four people were injured by debris from intercepted drones that fell on residential buildings, and damage was reported to the dubai international airportthe Burj Al Arab and the Palm Jumeirah. Teleworking recommended, not mandatory. The authorities of other countries in the region, such as Bahrain, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, also followed in the footsteps of the United Arab Emirates and recommended private companies adopt teleworking and restrictions on influx to offices due to the risk of Iranian missile attacks. Qatar, also punished for reprisals against US interests during the conflict, was another of the countries that activated teleworking protocols for its officials. However, something that all of them have in common is that none of them consider themselves as an obligation to teleworkbut rather companies are recommended to adopt teleworking, leaving the risk assessment to their discretion and that of local authorities. The Government of Dubai Media Office confirmed that the emirate’s private sector continued operating normally, with most business activities uninterrupted despite the risk of attacks. A region that learns to work under pressure. Although these countries are not officially at war with Iran, they are involved and targeted in Iranian attacks in retaliation against US and Israeli companies in the area. In this context, many fear that any escalation would lead Iran to attack critical infrastructure in the region more forcefully, which explains the caution of companies even after the announcement of the ceasefire reached in extremis during the early morning. trump qualified the pact of “total and complete victory.” But as negotiators work in Islamabad to turn that provisional ceasefire into a lasting agreement, Gulf companies continue to watch the calendar with one eye on the news and another on their security protocols to protect their employees. In Xataka | Working from anywhere was the dream of teleworking: not notifying those location changes can get you fired Image | Unsplash (Kate Trysh, Microsoft Copilot)

give reasons to bring back teleworking

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When the price of oil soars Because of a war, governments look for ways to reduce their consumption. This is something that already happened with the oil crisis of ’73 and it is being repeated again with the war between Iran, Israel and the US. One of the quickest is usually that people stop commuting to work. What is happening now leaves us with a certain déjà vu of 2020with the difference that the reason is no longer a virus, but an energy crisis and the objective is save energy. Asia has already released the 2020 manual. Given its greatest dependence on Iranian crude oilthe first movements have arrived from Southeast Asia. Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim advertisement that officials linked to the Administration will implement teleworking to reduce fuel consumption. The Philippines chose cut the work week to four days for executive officials, with the same objective. The measure has a preceding in 1990, when the country experienced a situation similar to the current one during the Gulf War. Sri Lanka and Pakistan also implemented the four-day week in their State departments, and countries such as Vietnam and Thailand They explicitly asked teleworking to reduce unnecessary travel. The International Energy Agency recommends teleworking. The International Energy Agency published a decalogue of measures to reduce the impact of the power surge. Teleworking tops that list due to its direct effect on fuel consumption during daily trips. The recommendation of the energy agency for reduce the volume of trips is not trivial, the report notes that “three additional days of teleworking, for those who allow it, could reduce automobile oil consumption by 2% to 6%, with average potential reductions of around 20% for individual drivers.” Spain advances its mobility plans one year. On March 20, the Government approved the Royal Decree-Law that launches the ‘Comprehensive Response Plan to the Crisis in the Middle East’ with a mobilization of 5 billion euros. One of the measures that this plan also includes is to advance the entry into force of the work mobility plans provided for in the Sustainable Mobility Law that was already approved, going from 24 to 12 months. This Mobility Law included the obligation for companies with work centers with 200 or more workers (or shifts of more than 100 workers) to create sustainable mobility plans that must include concrete measures to reduce travel through active mobility, collective transport and, this is the key, offer teleworking options in positions that allow it. Teleworking is already in the law, although no one has imposed it. In 2020, teleworking was an emergency measure and without a prior regulatory basis to regulate it. Now, there is a Remote Work Law and is being integrated into sustainable mobility plans, with deadlines and sanctions. Companies are not obliged to offer teleworking in a generalized way to its employees, but to design a strategy to reduce travel, which in many cases involves remote work. Not having teleworking does not carry a direct sanction. Not having a mobility planyes it does, which makes teleworking an increasingly less discretionary option for certain companies. If the energy crisis continues, the jump from recommendation to obligation now has much less distance than it did five years ago, because the legal basis is already in force. In Xataka | Teleworking will experience a second youth, at a very specific moment: when the boomers retire Image | Freepik, Unsplash (Jan Baborak)

Countries are desperate to raise their birth rates. They have a very simple weapon to apply: teleworking

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He aging population is one of the most pressing problems for large economies around the world. The birth rate is a pillar in a country’s economy, since the economy, the labor market, education and health, among many other policies, depend on it. When governments talk about “birth crisis“, they almost always resort to the same repertoire of solutions: baby checks, tax deductions or daycare aid. The problem is that, after years of applying them, fertility in most rich countries continues on the ground. However, a new study raises a new perspective: what if the solution to the birth rate problem was in the way we work? In that scenario, teleworking appears as a surprisingly powerful lever. Telework to have more children. a study carried out by researchers at Stanford University has discovered that offering work flexibility and teleworking improves the fertility rate in couples in which one of the members teleworks. The researchers did not measure the number of births (natality), but rather the fertility indicator. That is, the number of children that participants say they plan to have. The result is difficult to ignore because someone who does not have free time or who considers that they could not take on the upbringing of a child, nor do they consider having one. That is to say, there is no such predisposition, which does not help the birth rate grows. According to the study, going from having no teleworking option to teleworking five days a week is associated with an approximate increase of 0.13 children per woman in terms of expected fertility. This is equivalent to an increase of between 7% and 8% over the average of the group analyzed. Birth and fertility are not the same. It should be noted that talking about birth and fertility represents different scenarios, and this confusion can distort the debate. The birth rate It is the number of births that occur in a country during a specific period. It is the most common data when talking about birth rate since it determines, in real terms, the number of annual births, and allows it to be compared with the number of deaths to establish the demographic balance. Fertility, on the other hand, is a background indicator. It represents the number of children a woman has (or is expected to have) throughout her life. It is usually expressed as Global Fertility Rate (TGF). The difference between both concepts is important. While the birth rate can vary from year to year (for example, advancing decisions or in response to certain policies) without changing the structural trend, the fertility rate is a long-term metric: it indicates whether a woman plans to have only one child (no matter the year) or more. Motivated to have children. Examples like South Korea or Japan They show how complicated, and how expensive, it is to change a downward birth rate trend. That is why the increase in the intention to have children, without making any investment or applying additional fiscal policies, is very striking. The results of the study suggest that, perhaps, the way forward is not to subsidize the birth of more children, but rather to make the organization of parents’ work compatible with their upbringing. It’s not for money: it’s for time. For years, the political response has been fairly predictable. Having children is expensiveso you have to put money on the table to lighten that burden. The problem is that, although in most homes they need two salaries To survive, the truly scarce resource is time to take care of the children. Teleworking and flexible hours have reduced this daily friction since it implies less time traveling, greater control over schedules and, above all, greater ability to react to unforeseen events. for child care. The report ‘Women in the Workplace’ prepared by McKinsey showed that the lack of flexible hours forces many women to reduce their hours or stagnate their professional career. On this point, the conclusions of the Stanford researchers fit with the data that Pew Research got In a previous survey: Even with the difficulties of reconciling family and work, the majority of respondents considered it necessary to continue working and did not want to sacrifice their professional careers. What they needed was a job that does not make work life and childcare incompatible. It needs investment, but it is cheap. The study concludes that to match the fertility rate achieved by teleworking, it would be necessary to apply fiscal policies and incentives at a much higher cost. Subsidized childcare can improve the situation, but none of these measures make it easier. child care on a day-to-day basis, nor does it encourage families to have more children that complicate logistics even more. The time availability and flexibility of teleworking does. This does not mean that the implementation of teleworking is free. Has organizational costs for companiesyou cannot telework in all sectors and it can generate inequalities between employees whose positions do allow teleworking and those who do not. In Xataka | We have been teleworking for four years and a study has reached a conclusion: working from home makes us happier Image | Pexels (Anastasia Shuraeva)

there were no reasons to eliminate teleworking

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Holaluz, the energy marketer based in Barcelona, ​​has been condemned by the Social Court No. 21 after its decision to eliminate teleworking for its entire workforce. This measure, communicated at the end of 2024 and effective from January 2025, which put on the warpath to his staff leading to the resignation of more than 30% of employees. The company justified the measure by organizational and economic causesalleging a bad financial situation. Justice has ruled in favor of its employees. It was a unilateral decision. According to a statement published by the CGT union, the court ruling comes after months of internal tension and after the lawsuit filed jointly by the union and the Holaluz works council. The court has concluded that Holaluz did not provide objective and measurable evidence to support the complete elimination of remote workand that the decision violated the acquired rights of the staff, who had been enjoying five years of a flexible model and three with frozen salaries. Reversible, but negotiated, teleworking. The Social court recognizes that teleworking was part of the contracts of Holaluz employees. That is, this modality was not given as a temporary or exceptional measure. in the wake of the pandemic. In these contracts there was a reversibility clause that reserves the right to review and evaluate the teleworking model under objective circumstances linked to the suitability of the position in each individual case. However, the company applied the elimination of remote work across the board. alleging economic causes and the need to reorganize the way you work. Furthermore, the ruling states that the company acted with little good faith in the negotiation, maintaining a rigid position and without accepting alternatives such as a consensual hybrid model. This lack of openness was reflected in the fact that Holaluz communicated the decision to the staff before closing the dialogue process, thus consolidating the unilateral imposition of the change. It wasn’t just teleworking. In December 2024, Holaluz management informed its staff that it would completely reverse teleworking as of January 2025. This decision did not come alone as it was accompanied by the elimination of benefits for staff such as language courses and health insurance. The set of changes produced in the working conditions of employees was presented as a Substantial Modification of Working Conditions (MSCT) for your entire workforce. The negotiations lasted two weeks and ended without an agreement, which led to the first strike in Spain called for the elimination of teleworking. Forced to go to a distant office. The measure especially affected those employees who had either been hired under the premise of teleworking or who had moved away from the office. The obligation to return to in-person attendance meant new transportation costs and long trips for many. Workers publicly denounced that the change sought to pressure employees to leave the company as a “covert ERE.” Resignation with compensation. The judicial resolution not only declares the elimination of teleworking inadmissible, but also declares as justified the terminations of the contracts of those workers who resigned due to substantial changes in working conditions. In accordance with article 41 of the Workers Statuteany employee who terminates his contract for this reason has the right to compensation of 20 days of salary for each year worked, with a maximum of nine monthly payments. This implies that dozens of former Holaluz employees who resigned after the elimination of teleworking will be able to claim this payment In its statement, the CGT union describes it as “an important victory” for the recognition of labor rights, and assures that this case can set a precedent for unilateralism in eliminate teleworking options in Spain. In Xataka | “It is not a hidden layoff”: Amazon’s CEO has denied that returning to the office is an excuse to reduce his workforce Image | Hellolight, Unsplash (myHQ Workspaces)

If the question is how much salary you would be willing to give up for keeping teleworking, Europeans are clear: zero

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Teleworking has been one of the Great changes in the organization of the labor market in Europe, although its objective has changed as normality was restored and companies returned to its offices. It was no longer an obligation imposed by COVID-19, but a benefit that It contributed time flexibility For conciliation and, above all, an effective weapon to attract and retain talent. In this context of “labor benefit”, the question of whether workers would be willing to sacrifice part of their salary to maintain the option of working from home has gained relevance between companies. The European Central Bank (ECB) has asked European employees to what percentage of salary would be willing to give up in exchange for maintaining teleworking. Their answers leave no doubt. Nor for all the money in the world. According to data extracted from the Consumer expectations survey (CES) From the European Central Bank, 70% of European workers are not willing to give up any part of their salary in exchange for Teleworking. On the other hand, 13% of the respondents would accept a reduction that would range between 1% and 5%, while only 8% would consent to a more significant salary reduction between 6% and 10%. This data is especially precious to companies since it allows quantifying the value that employees give to the possibility of teleworking, especially when this flexibility is offered as part of an emotional salary for the worker. Percentage of workers who would accept a salary cut and cutting percentage More and more teleworking … but hybrid. So much The data of Eurostat, like those of the Active Population Survey From the first quarter of 2025, they point out that teleworking levels They are maintainedboth European and nationally, well above the prepazed levels recorded in 2019. That means that there is more and more active population working from home. The greatest change that has occurred is that, while before 2019 the most common option was 100% remote work, now the most imposed modality is hybrid work in which work days and teleworking days are combined. That condition of hybrid day too Condition the salary percentage to which employees are willing to give up to keep teleworking. More teleworking, greater sacrifice. The data of the European Central Bank indicate that the most widespread option is to work two or three days a week from home and the rest from the office. For this formula, European workers would be willing to reduce their salary by an average of 2.6% to maintain that regime. The more teleworking days are offered, the greater the salary proportion than some would be willing to sacrifice. An employee who works his entire work week would accept a reduction of 4.6% of his salary, while those who only telework one day a week would barely contemplate 1.6% of cuts. The return to the office increases its pressure. In Europe, companies are not pressing their employees so much To return to your offices as the US companies are doing. This lower pressure is also reflected in the salary cuts that employees are willing to accept. In it Teleworking Study Study That researchers from Stanford and Chicago University have been doing for more than five years, it is noted that the average salary reduction accepted by remote work in the US is around 7%. This difference suggests that in Europe teleworking is no longer considered An exceptional privilegebut part of the basic working conditions in numerous sectors. The problem of eliminating teleworking. Given these data, some companies could be tempted to eliminate teleworking, or take advantage of the attachment of employees for this day model to reduce salaries. However, that plan that seems attractive in the short term, becomes a bad idea in the medium and long term. Telework has become a tool of the Human Resources Department for attract and retain a qualified personnel increasingly scarce. Just observe the waves of resignations and internal conflicts that have generated return policies to the office of Amazon Or, at a closer level, the Holaluz energy. However, offering some teleworking modality makes vacancies take less to cover themselves Because there are more candidates calling companies that maintain these models, and employees who already work on them have better levels of satisfaction. In Xataka | Australia reveals something that had not been taken into account: teleworking is only productive if you wish, not if they impose it Image | Unspash (Coworking macherzentrum toggenburg)

The great technological technological ones give the teleworking, but the data tell a different story: it has doubled

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In recent months, the great US technological ones They have hardened your policies return to your offices and Eliminating teleworking optionswhile They bet for the accelerated development of AI. However, the Spanish labor market does not follow the same trend with respect to teleworking. The data collected for the report ‘V Telework radiography in Spain September 2025‘ Prepared by Infojobs, they reveal that although it is true that the percentages have fallen with respect to the records from 2020 to 2022, the teleworking has remained stable at levels that double those recorded before 2020. Teleworking in Spain. While in Silicon Valley the headlines proliferate on the end of teleworking, In Spain, work flexibility takes a different path. The data collected by the Infojobs Employment Portal indicate that Spain has maintained sustained growth in terms of Teleworking adoption. 25% of workers currently perform their activity with some remote work formula or in hybrid format. The Last data Of 2024 of the Active Population Survey, they point out that 7.8% of the total active population worked at least half of its weekly day from home, compared to 7.6% who claimed to do it occasionally. In absolute figures, this represents a total of 3.2 million people, placing the percentage of teleworking in Spain around 15.4% of the total employed people working remote. This figure is well above 6% registered in 2019 by the INE, or of 8.3% that was recorded just before pandemic. Source: Infojobs Hybrid work: the balance between flexibility and availability. One of the keys to Teleworking success In Spain it is in its Evolution towards hybrid formatsin which face -to -face days with teleworking days. According to the Infojobs report, 44% of those who telework do so using this hybrid model with between one and four days of remote work. 24% telework two days per week, while 21% of employees who claim teleworking maintain 100% remote activity. The availability of options It has been varying In recent years and, at present, 46% of companies offer some remote work format. Of that group, only 11% of the companies maintain a 100% remote model, marking a decrease with respect to the 12% registered in 2024, but compensated for this fall with more employment offers with hybrid work, which rises from 33% to 35% in just one year. Source: Infojobs Leading sectors on teleworking. While many sectors have experienced an increase in the number of Job offers with teleworkingthe commercial and sales sector leads both in number of workers who exercise remotely and in the volume of new vacancies (39,184 published offers). In the opposite pole, the sectors with less remote work offers are the pharmacist (283 vacancies) and graphic design and arts (499 offers). As for the weight of teleworking by sectors, the sector that most remote employment offers has published is that of computer science and telecommunications (68%) followed closely by legal (58%) and finance (52%). That is, seven out of ten programmers, computer engineers or people, work under some remote work model. According to the study, the sectors with the lowest incidence of teleworking are those inevitably face -to -face, such as tourism and restoration, artisans and trades or health and health, which record values ​​below 1%. Who and where he works remotely. Among the most demanded profiles with teleworking options are, as indicated by sectoral data, IT analysts, Backend and Border developers, ICT consultants and fullstack engineers. All of them with teleworking options between 75 and 90% of the published offers. From the geographical point of view, a curious phenomenon happens and the concentration of teleworking is based on the nature of the predominant industry in that area, instead of allowing disintegration throughout the national territory. This phenomenon is due to hybrid work that, although it allows you to reduce displacements to the office, maintains anchoring with the territory by reducing the chances of workers to move to live outside the community in which the company for which they work for. The greatest proportion focuses in Madrid (40%), followed by Catalonia (19%) and Andalusia (11%), areas with strong presence of technological, commercial and financial companies. In Xataka | Working from anywhere was Teleworking: Not notifying these location changes can make you fire you Image | Unspash (Rodeo Project Management Software)

Coinbase is going from being “Remote First” to harden teleworking. The reason: North Korean hackers

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Coinbase, who was born as a digital native company and an defender of the work in a remote work, has reversed in the labor policy that he assumed mostly from the pandemic. Now require that all new employees travel to the United States for your face -to -face orientation. Those who access sensitive information must be American citizens and undergo fingerprints. Reason does not have so much to do with Teleworking setbacks that we have seen in other companies. It is rather a matter of survival: they have detected North Korean technological workers trying to systematically infiltrate the company To steal information and cryptocurrencies. The threat. The CEO, Brian Armstrong, explained that they have detected a constant flow of highly qualified North Korean candidates. “It’s as if 500 new each quarter graduated,” he said. And they are not simple amateur hackers: the FBI has confirmed that They operate with accomplices in US territory That they forward portable companies, attend virtual interviews posing as candidates and set up screen companies. It also occurs in Europe. For the Pyongyang regime, cryptocurrency theft is a more income source of financing whose income They also help the nuclear weapons program. Only this year they would have stolen $ 1.4 billion Exchange Bybit Between bambalins. Infiltrates are not the only problem. Coinbase has discovered bribes of hundreds of thousands of dollars to customer service workers to obtain account information. Some came to introduce mobiles in supposedly safe facilities to photograph screens with sensitive data. The company has responded with drastic measures: employees work in armored facilities with Chromebooks safe and limited access to information. “When we catch someone, we do not accompany him to the door; he goes to jail,” Armstrong said. Turning point. This security crisis marks a before and after in the debate on remote work. Coinbase has had to choose between what was its business culture and its survival. And he has done the second. In fact he has opened a new office in North Carolina to concentrate critical operations in US territory. The interviews now require keeping the camera on to verify that the candidate is the one who claims to be and is not being supplanted or directed. And now what. The Coinbase case can be just the tip of the iceberg. If a leading technology company with security as one of its pillars cannot keep remote work safe, what can others expect? Pandemia normalized teleworking, but security threats can reverse that trend. Especially in sensitive sectors such as finance, technology and defense. In Xataka | In 2011 a group of investors bought 80,000 bitcoins. They have been sold by 17,000,000% more expensive Outstanding image | Xataka

Australia has analyzed teleworking since before pandemic. His conclusions disassemble the reasons for the return to the office

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Although teleworking is no longer the preferred option by companies, or at least not their full -time variant, remote work continues to maintain much higher values that those who registered before pandemic. That shows that, in a way, teleworking does arrive to stay in Very specific contexts. Australia has been observing the real impact of teleworking for four years and consolidated data contradict old prejudices. “Working from home makes us happier,” The authors assure of a study by the University of Southern Australia, ciming a new more flexible and productive labor model. Time flexibility: the new office fruit. The Australian study is especially revealing because it began before the pandemic and the rise of teleworking and has been extended for four years, which leaves a much more defined photo of how remote work has impacted on the way of working and its consequences. According to the study, the possibility of choosing from where to work has allowed to improve both the mental and physical health of workers, although there is still a certain friction from corporate culture. According to A report of the International Labor Organization (OTI), the flexibility provided by teleworking is already equal to The emotional salary with which companies try to capture and retain the best employees, replacing other benefits. Most satisfied employees with their work. The data collected by the study reveal that before the pandemic, the Australian worker used about 4.5 hours per week only in displacements to the office. That time optimization It makes those who work from home enjoy “ten extra days of free time a year against those who go to the office”, dedicating 33% of that time to leisure, which implies “more opportunities to be physically active and less sedentary.” A factor that also highlighted the Academic Study which was carried out in Spain from the Lacaixa Foundation. According to the authors, these data “usually go hand in hand with worse mental health and with lower scores in the assessment of our own health.” Thanks to teleworking, employees have gained “hours of rest to sleep and, for example, breakfast more peacefully”, which helps reduce levels of template stress. In turn, this recovered time also has a reflection in healthier habits, such as home preparation or the increase in the consumption of fruits, vegetables and dairy. The result has been a more varied and healthy diet, with less dependence on ultraprocessed foods that require less preparation time. Positive whenever it is by choice. If something has shown us the experience of “forced” teleworking during the confinements of 2020 is that the teleworking It is not for everyone. Since this study allows to contrast the situation of employees before and after the massive arrival of teleworking, it also reveals how it affects that change of work model in workers The researchers found that the well -being and mental health They improved especially when teleworking was voluntarily chosen, while “when employees work from home for obligation, mental health and well -being tend to get worse.” Productivity in evidence. One of the main arguments of companies for the return to the office has been the alleged fall in productivity that was associated with teleworking. In this sense, researchers blame the problem more to an inability to assign tasks and New model management not in a direct casuistry of teleworking. “In many cases, managers who claim that teleworking reduces productivity responds more to a lack of management than a real performance problem,” says researchers in their conclusions. The conclusion after four years of monitoring is unequivocal: work performance and productivity seem to stay stable or, in most cases, improve when working from home. These results coincide With other research that They disconnect the decrease in productivity of the company with the teleworking. The distance does affect the cohesion of the equipment. Great corporations like Amazon wielded The argument of the cohesion of the equipment To impose The return to the office. In that sense, the study prepared by Australian researchers recognizes that “the connection with the classmates is difficult to reproduce at a distance,” admit those responsible for the study, and alert about the risk of loss of cohesion in the work teams. But, as has been demonstrated with some strategies back to the office, the problem can be mitigated by facilitating efficient communication channels. A Recent study Posted in the magazine Naturerevealed that this Team cohesion problem It currently persists with the hybrid day model, provided that consistent communication patterns are not established. In Xataka | A Barcelona company wanted to try the four -day week. He ended up firebaging an employee for having two jobs Image | Unspash (Rodeo Project Management Software)

One of the greatest consultants has brought the war against teleworking to the extreme: a “traffic light” to control

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PricewaterhouseCoopers multinational consultant (PWC) decided A little less than a year ago than The 100% Teleworking Era had ended. He joined the decisions that had adopted competitive companies such as EY. The striking of the movement were its conditions: it would geolocate their teleworkors to control that they were going to the office 60% of the day, the minimum amount that it now demanded (after having requested 40% until that moment). Now, thanks to Financial Times We know how they are carrying out control in their offices in the United Kingdom. Traffic lights. PWC measures have not only fallen into broken bag, but have intensified. Since April, the company is registering in a control panel the assistance and if the three days they demand at the week are passed in the office. To control compliance more visually, the company has established an indicator based on traffic light colors. Those employees who meet have a “green” in their state. The profile of those that drops from 60% has an amber, and those that fall from 40% have a red. In addition to the workers themselves, supervisors, heads of business units and directors have access to this traffic light. Thorough control. To verify that the employees go to the offices (OA meetings with customers, outside them), the company is carrying out a monitoring of the location of the wifi connections of the laptops. The data that is collected following this control is intended with the assistance or absence indicated in Workday, the software used for human resources issues, and in the personnel control sheets. In addition to the WiFi, PWC also has control of when employees pass their cards as an signing to enter and leave the offices. Policies against the old trick. The verification of assistance based on the entry and exit signings is something that many companies have carried out. Those employees who wanted to try to skip that control did something simple, according to a study: 58% of the workers employed under a hybrid work system went to the office, signed and then they left. Amazon already ended this picaresque establishing a minimum time to go to the office. Hey also reinforced Its access policies with lathes Checking that 50% of some teams breached the demands for assistance to their facilities. The control based on Wi -Fi connections is the brooch to these policies. Consequences. The question is what happens to employees who have a red or amber in their traffic light. And the internal guide for employees to which the Financial Times has accessed is clear: they face formal sanctions and a reduction of their performance in evaluations, where extra bonuses are played to their base salary. That same guide includes special exceptions or permits for family or disease reasons. Employee reactions. PWC workers are complaining so much about this scrutiny that a high -rank worker has told the Financial Times that he has lost his account of how many complaints he received. Employees are restless about tracking methods, and seek more transparency since the pressure to be fulfilled rose. It goes in the line of the best qualified employees in companies of the S&P 500: Rotation triggered by imposing face -to -face. According to a study by McKinsey, return to the office It is not enough to improve productivity. A company spokesman said that the control panel “guarantees that our people have easy access to their assistance data, so that they can manage and plan their time in a way that works for them, our equipment and our clients.” The paradox. The ‘Big Four’ have been serious with the return to the office, but they have always been in the spotlight of the management of extra hours, and Work fined them in Spain for having lacked time registration (mandatory by law since 2019) and for excess of day. The macro -inspection ended, at least 1.4 million euros that had to pay for different circumstances for social security fees. Image | Flickr (Raul Muñoz) and Carlos Alberto Gómez Iñiguez in Unspash In Xataka | The companies bet on the return to the office. Public administration keeps an ace in the sleeve: Teleworking

The teleworking is falling in all of Spain. In all? No, an village resists the invader: the officials

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Far from the rise that He lived during 2020the teleworking has entered into A downward trend In the private sector. The face -to -face consolidates as the model preferred by companieswith offices that recover prominence. Given that reduction, a model has gained prominence: the Hybrid Day. However, there is an area in which teleworking seems to resist this setback: Public administration. Companies return to the office. Companies seem to have spent page with teleworking, and bet on the return to the face -to -face. According to the report ‘Digital Society in Spain 2024‘ Published by the National Observatory of Technology and Society (ONTSI), 69.9% of employed people always work away from home, compared to 30.1% that telework to some extent. Of that percentage of teleworking, only 9% of the total does so permanently from home (something that also confirms INE data), while 21.1% apply it under a model of Hybrid Day with between two and four face -to -face work day. The public sector walks in the opposite direction. Despite the tendency towards the face -to -face of the private sector, the General State Administration maintains much higher figures of employees that telework, and this trend does not seem to have come to an end. According to 2024 data publishedby The economist49.15% of the officials and employees of the State Administration are welcomed to teleworking. This percentage is equivalent to about 87,618 public workers who carry out their work remotely, mainly, with a maximum of three weekly days. This difference in approach to the teleworking of the State Administration adds points, Next to the salary or labor stability, so that public employment has become the Preferred Labor Alternative For many employees, in the face of the temporality, precariousness and face -to -face of the private sector. More public teleworking. The Digital transformation The administration has allowed progress in the implementation of teleworking, especially in those positions that do not require direct contact with the citizen. A recent example is starred by the Basque Government, which has reached an agreement with the unions to increase teleworking two days a week to both officials and labor personnel, such and As you collect The Basque newspaper. However, the most relevant thing about these teleworking measures that are being adopted in the administration is that the criterion ceases to focus on the nature of the job, to focus on the tasks that can be done remote. This task approach opens a new way when organizing public employment, traditionally face -to -face and bureaucratized. Unique criteria. The great “but” of this commitment to maintain and even expand teleworking in public administrations is the lack of a unique criterion for the different administrations. The General State Administration has its own norms included in article 47 bis of the Basic Statute Law of the Public Employee. However, each autonomous community and municipalities have power to regulate the work model of its officials, so there is no unique rule that regulates it, although tasks can be similar. For example, the Junta de Andalucía has just regulated the remote day of its officials, limiting it to 40% of its day. That is, two days, in front of The three days which are allowed in the General State Administration. Teleworking in state administration. As It is established In the basic statute of the public employee, the State Administration allows to telework up to three days per week, “provided that the nature of the position allows and the adequate provision of the service is guaranteed.” This formula has been mainly implanted in those bodies that They perform technical tasksof analysis or information management. General Bodies of State Administration. Formed by administrative or administrative assistants who carry out tasks related to the management of documents or databases. Digital and Informatics Administration. Those officials in charge of software development, management of networks or computer systems of the administration. Department of Justice. Officials who work in the procedural and administrative management and processing of the judicial documentation, provided that their position does not require face -to -face attention. Finance staff. Administrative or tax analysis technicians, in charge of preparing files, economic-financial analysis and tax management and finance inspectors, when they must perform a more technical task. Statistics officials. Those officials assigned to the General Corps of State Statistics or Statistics Technicians who carry out data, reports and studies. Department of Culture. Higher auxiliary or technical technicians of libraries and archives dedicated to documentary digitalization or content management. In Xataka | The public sector as a refuge for employees undervalued by private companies: 45% of opponents already have a job Image | Unspash (Susanna Marsiglia)

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