Teleworking: what will the office of tomorrow look like?

It will soon be a year since the teleworking has changed the professional and personal environment for a majority of employees. No longer able to travel, business travellers have been forced to going all virtual for their meetings and events. At the end of this very special year, what conclusions can we draw from an experience that was unprecedented for many? What will the office, the meeting and the business trip look like in the future? Admittedly, this "word of absence from the office", stamped by the Minister of Labour herself, initially aroused some enthusiasm among some employees. If only for the novelty of the experiment "home office, terra incognita for many professionals. Or for the time saved on transport, at the end of a strike lasting several weeks...". A customer recently told me that when she's not in the office, she saves an hour's travel time in the morning and the same amount in the evening. Out of the two hours she saves, she reinvests one for the company and the other for herself, to go for a walk, do some sport... It's a win-win situation".testifies Michel Font, founder of the consultancy Nelta.

An idyllic conception of remote working has even emerged in places, particularly for the luckiest of people who have been able to move to a country house or other green exile, far from the locked-down cities. Some have gone even further, responding to calls from destinations usually reserved for tourists, who, bereft of travellers, have made the promise of an office with a sea or mountain view. On 31 January this year, for example, a Paatch space was set up in a vast chalet in Morzine, with the ambition of "to offer millennials and companies alike a new working model for their young employees: somewhere between coworking, incubation and company seminars!. The experiment had already been a success at a château in the Dordogne a few months earlier.

Further on, much further on, the famous digital nomads have conveyed a heavenly image of working remotely. And destinations hitherto reserved for tourists or incentive operations were quick to capitalise on the trend by offering specific visas, such as theMauritius at the end of last year. Deprived of tourist revenue, these destinations are claiming to be business havens with a tempting credo: if you're going to work from home, you might as well opt for a 'home' with a sea view...

Over time, the idealised version of teleworking has given way to a certain weariness. The figures bear this out: according to a study carried out at the end of January by Harris Interactive - at the request of the Ministry of Labour - 64 % of French people work exclusively face-to-face, compared with 59 % at the beginning of November. According to the same survey, only a third (36 %) of employees say they can work from home without difficulty.

"In a personal capacity, I can't telework from home, or only very badlyThat's why I come to the office. I can't do it: you also have to be able to recognise it and ask yourself the right questions." confided Arnaud KatzBird Office's CEO, at a GBTA E-Masterclass last December. "You have to realise that there are real risks for employees. Many have had problems with the advent of teleworking. The boundary between work and personal life is becoming increasingly blurred, and if you don't have a decompression chamber, there are real dangers and real performance issues. And yet, performance requires well-being" continues Arnaud Katz.

A number of studies have backed this up, pointing to the physical and psychological impact of the home office. So much so that the government set up a new toll-free number at the end of 2020. "As part of the reconfiguration and widespread introduction of teleworking, a telephone helpline has been set up to provide support for employees of very small businesses and SMEs who feel particularly isolated or are having difficulty working from home".explained the Ministry of Labour website at the time.

The evidence is clear: not all employees are suited to working exclusively from home. Neither are all homes... Third places like coworking spaces and hotels offer an alternative... (see here)and an actor like Startway even offers to equip employees' homes with specially adapted equipment: Startway@Home covers desks, ergonomic chairs, IT assistance and even PCs.

Some teleworkers have taken more radical decisions, taking advantage of the situation to leave the major metropolises and buy larger homes in the regions. A report published last December by the Paris Chamber of Notaries confirms a form of urban exodus: " Confinement has revealed a new need for the outdoors, for greenery and space".note the authors of the study. " The heart of major conurbations has lost many of its attractions as a result of health restrictions, leading to the emergence, according to many commentators, of a form of "urban sprawl". "counter-urbanisation and a new growth in household mobility made possible by the development of teleworking".. According to the Notaires de Paris, " Buyers who used to live in the capital now seem more inclined to change their horizons. 55 % of them are still staying in Paris, but it's a historic low compared with the last 10 years, when the rate was around 60 % to 65 %"..

If this trend continues, can we expect to see the dissolution of business hubs, the desertion of business districts and the decentralisation of the professional world? After all, many companies have already calculated the substantial savings that could be made by reorganising their infrastructure. And economic uncertainty means that we need to be cautious: " Major accounts are reviewing their real estate assets to reduce costs, while at the same time introducing new organisational methods so that their employees don't have to come back to the office every day. confirms Christophe Burckart, Managing Director France of IWG.

From a managerial point of view, the loss of the physical link between employees and their work environment also poses new problems, particularly in terms of motivation and cohesion. Frequent business travellers, who were already used to regularly deserting their company headquarters, are often frustrated. "They're stalling, they can't wait to get going again! says Michel Font, founder of the consultancy firm Nelta. A study published in February by IHG Hotels & Resorts confirms this: a third of business travellers are demotivated by the absence of a business trip, and even 40 % in the United States. More generally, with the dispersal of teams comes the risk of seeing the corporate culture wither away. "Corporate culture is, quite rightly, a major concern for many managers".say Pamela Hinds and Brian Elliott in the Harvard Business Review. "How can they reimagine their culture in a world where office rituals and ceremonies are inaccessible and workers have little or no face-to-face interaction with each other or their managers? How can they create the kinds of bonds that build a lasting culture, let alone integrate new employees? How can they redefine corporate culture to match the new rhythms that emerge when some employees are in the office and others are working from anywhere?"continue the authors.

It's hard to say today what will remain of this novel experiment in the long term. Habits have been formed, and investments made, in particular to equip employees and enable them to be effective from home. A study published at the end of 2020 by Expensya noted: " We have seen an increase in the cost of services, utilities and equipment purchases. This upward trend is undoubtedly due to the widespread use of teleworking within several companies, even after the initial lockdown was lifted. To cope with this period as effectively as possible, employees have prepared themselves to be able to carry out their professional activities from home: fitting out the workspace, purchasing equipment, developing effective means of remote communication. This explains the increase in expenditure on services, utilities and equipment. ".

It's hard to imagine 'all teleworking' becoming the norm, but this episode is bound to have a long-term impact: " I don't think there will be any turning back, especially as employees and staff representative bodies are also looking for this less restrictive model.says Christophe Burckart. From this point of view, we have gained years in the transformation of office uses and in the maturing of work organisation. In the way we manage too, which is not the same remotely as it is face-to-face..

Employees, for their part, seem to favour a model hybridThis was confirmed by a study carried out by Slack last summer: " The experience of working from home has given many office workers the opportunity to try a new way of working, and the data shows that they (mostly) enjoy it. The vast majority of employees (72 %) prefer a hybrid compromise that combines home and office. Workers are much less enthusiastic about the idea of working in a single environment: only 12 % would prefer to work in the office all the time, and 13 % would like to work from home full-time".stresses the report.

This compromise between face-to-face work and teleworking - with the balance between office, home office and third places to be defined on a case-by-case basis - could well be the major challenge for companies in the future. In terms of human resources, office property... but also managing professional mobility. While many employees have realised the importance of a rallying point for colleagues, embodied by the office, they have also given up on presenteeism. Routine travel to work, on "automatic pilot", could well give way to a more considered approach, more demanding in terms of meaning and added value. Could this become the business trip of the future?