At a time when the fifth wave breaks, “Will employers be convinced that they have an interest in letting their employees telecommute? “, asked Antonin Bergeaud, economist at the Ecole normale supérieure, during a conference on companies in the crisis, organized jointly by the Banque de France and INSEE, Thursday, November 25.
A crucial question while teleworking has decreased drastically since the summer and that the Mouvement des entreprises de France (Medef) seems to want to avoid a massive redeployment of the “Home office”. Generalize teleworking “Would be a mistake”, even declared its president, Geoffroy Roux de Bézieux, on November 23, preferring to refer the subject to company agreements.
According to figures published on November 4 by the directorate for the animation of research, studies and statistics (Dares), only a fifth of employees were at least one day teleworked during the month of September, a figure which decreases steadily, and only 2% of all employees teleworked every day of the week. In November 2020, a year ago, more than a quarter of employees had been teleworking at least one day a week, of which 44% teleworked every day. Levels comparable to those of March 2020.
Increase in effective working time
However, say Antonin Bergeaud, Gilbert Cette, professor of economics at Neoma Business School, and Simon Drapala, student at the Paris School of Economics, in a note to be published, no offense to Medef, teleworking is beneficial. for the company. Not only are teleworkers not withdrawn from their tasks, no matter what their colleagues who stay in the open space think, but they are even “Overall a little more efficient”, announces Mr. Bergeaud.
Among the elements that promote the efficiency of remote employees, the elimination of home-work transport time figures prominently: the time thus saved would be reinvested for a third in the performance of professional tasks leading to an increase in working time. effective work.
The deployment of teleworking encourages companies to invest more in digital technology
This study, which is based, among other things, on a survey carried out by the Banque de France in 2020, concludes that increasing the number of teleworkers by 1 point (for example, going from 17% to 18% of the workforce ) increases the productivity of the company by 0.6%. By extrapolating these results, this makes it possible to say that a switch to teleworking one day a week, for 15% of employees in France, would make it possible to increase overall productivity by around 9%, a ” magnitude “, specifies Mr. Bergeaud. U.S. studies conducted in 2021 reach similar conclusions, the authors say.
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