SPAIN'S headcount has risen to its highest figure in history – for the first time ever, the population has broken the 48 million barrier.
Half of working hours could be home-based within 10 years, say experts
03/10/2020
AROUND half of all working hours could be carried out from home within a decade, according to various experts – either 50% of all jobs, or in fact most jobs but with time split between remote-working and the office.
Among those who have been researching what remains a relatively new idea in Spain are government secretary for local administration Víctor Almonacid, who is also an expert in digital law, and Emilio Soro, sociologist and professor of PR and media at Castellón's Jaume I University, who has been studying this concept since the 1990s.
When Professor Soro first began investigating the issues surrounding working from home, it was less practical to do so – internet was not in wide use, at least, not in the majority of offices, and few people owned a laptop or even a desktop computer.
“Within a decade, as much as 50% of work time could be spent in this way, but it obviously depends on the type of job; there are those which could be done 90% from home – although it's always a good idea for some of it to be on the premises, especially those where the employee's position is closely linked to his or her superiors within the organisation – others, of course, cannot be conducted remotely,” Professor Soro says.
Clearly, manufacturing, manual occupations, the service industry such as retail and catering, cannot be transferred to the home, but almost anything office-related which does not need the employee to be in the physical presence of the customer does not necessarily require the staff member to clock in and out and commute, those consulted say.
Professor Nick van Dam of the IE Centre for Corporate Learning and Innovation at the Business Institute University believes 'many variables are involved', but that 'a high percentage of workers will experience distance-working in the next 10 years' – perhaps between one and three days a week out of five.
A recent study by the Bank of Spain found that, even now, around 30% of jobs and working hours could be carried out remotely, and dean of employment psychology at Valencia University, investigator for the Valencian Economic Research Institute (IVIE) and member of the Psychology Academy of Spain, José María Peiró, says: “In general terms, a high percentage of professionals will be working a high percentage of their time remotely – in other words, on a mixed distance-office régime.”
Along with economist Ángel Soler, Peiró has written the report The Increase in Remote Working During Covid-19 and its Challenges, published by the IVIE in May, and in which they both state that the pandemic has forced companies and their staff to focus almost exclusively on working from home – even, in theory, to a far greater extent than that which would have been desirable for the firms involved.
Last year, Spain's National Institute of Statistics (INE) identified a moderate increase in the trend towards working from home, although even then, only 4.8% of people did so – well below the European average.
By May 2020, according to the Bank of Spain, as many as 80% of companies had their staff working at home.
“It's not a new trend,” reveals Nick van Dam.
“Ever since the arrival of the internet, many companies have been starting to allow employees to work remotely.
“The Covid-19 pandemic and the current and future processes of digitalisation of businesses have simply accelerated the trend.”
All the above parties have said lockdown and home-working have proven to be 'quite an incredible social experiment'.
“The prerequisites for this mode of working are all there, in Spain,” adds Peiró – quoting the National Telecommunications Observatory, he says the country is 11th out of 28 European Union member States, a definition which, at the time the statistics were compiled, included the UK, in terms of public services being offered online, in human capital, in connectivity, in use of internet services, and in digital technology integration.
“In technology terms, we're not doing too badly in the way of equipment and digitalisation,” Peiró admits.
So, why is Spain below the European average – or would be below it, if it had not been for lockdown?
“It's mainly cultural reasons rather than any other cause,” he says – and the other experts consulted agreed.
These cultural barriers occur despite the fact that numerous studies have shown working from home actually improves productivity, rather than the reverse.
Advantages
Productivity is one of these. It has been shown time and again that office-based workers, despite all good intentions, tend towards 'presenteeism', or in layman's terms, 'keeping a seat warm'. They are required to clock in at a given time and remain there until another given time, typically an eight-hour day in Spain, but are unlikely to get eight hours' work done.
This may be because of time spent chatting with colleagues, popping onto social media or, even if nothing but actual work happens in the office, the pace of this slows down as the day wears on for 'morning people' or starts off slowly and then speeds up for 'owls', meaning at one point in the schedule, an hour's work is completed in half an hour and at another point, an hour's work takes two hours.
By contrast, those who work at home tend to focus more, spend less time on the job but produce more when they do so, studies have revealed.
Working fewer hours means they are less tired, even if they do not, in fact, do any less work than they would in an office – and the flexibility that home-working often involves helps create a better balance between life and job.
Unless there is a particular business reason for keeping to set hours, some might decide to work at night, or others to get up very early and finish by mid-afternoon, take breaks when they need them rather than when they are 'allowed' to, or stop to collect the children from school and restart later.
Even if staff were more productive at different times of the day, it would not be feasible for an office to open around the clock to cater for this because of overheads, such as utility bills, but this would not be an issue at home.
And, in fact, even where employees spend some of their time in the office – meaning the company does not save on rent or mortgage for a physical premises – overheads can still be reduced, as fewer hours' worth of electricity in lighting and heating or air-conditioning are needed, desks and computers can be shared where staff are in the office on different days, water bills go down from fewer people using the bathrooms or the staff kitchens all at once, and so on.
One school of thought is that a greater emphasis on home-working may cause other industries to suffer, such as cafés and restaurants at lunchtimes and breaktimes, or even the motor trade if people do not need a car to commute; however, this may not be the case: An office-based employee may well go home for lunch, but a home-based employee may feel the need to get right away from the workplace and leave the house to go to a café – also, if at least the odd day here and there are spent in an office, or the staff member lives in an area with limited public transport, a car may be necessary anyway, even if only for grocery shopping and out-of-work leisure activities.
Some employees may thrive on working from home since, although they may be more productive, they might also be more relaxed: They are less nervous about the boss constantly looking over their shoulder.
Another major benefit to a rise in home-working is that it is kinder to the planet: Less travelling means less air pollution, lower emissions, and fewer traffic jams, the latter of which, of course, results in less stress on the rest of the population and fewer road accidents.
Disadvantages
Contrary to what many companies or employers may believe, the disadvantages, according to Nick van Dam, lie not so much in unsupervised workers 'skiving' or 'taking advantage', but in staff exerting themselves too much.
Not learning how to 'switch off', worrying that the actual workload they produce is suddenly thrust into the spotlight and that themselves as humans cease to exist can cause staff to overdo it in an attempt to prove their worth.
Additionally, it can be isolating – relationships between colleagues can become distant as the informal communication between them throughout the day is lost, and employees can feel directionless without having a supervisor on hand to guide them or to refer queries to.
Some of these drawbacks, says Van Dam, are largely the result of widespread remote working in Spain being an 'emergency situation' – thrust upon staff and companies alike very suddenly and with little time to prepare psychologically.
The key, says Professor Soro, lies in firms and staff reaching agreements on the various aspects involved before beginning a distance-working régime, such as hours worked and tasks to be achieved, deadlines, and referral procedures in the case of uncertainties.
“It's crucial to reach a compromise between the needs of workers, companies and customers in terms of objectives,” says Soro.
“Things are never done properly when they arise through emergency situations, but issues can and should be resolved.”
Solutions should come hand in hand with legislation, the various experts believe, and welcome the Council of Ministers' newly-approved Royal Decree, or Bill of Law, which regulates home-based working for the first time ever in Spain.
Until now, remote working was thought to be the territory of freelancers and considered incompatible with actual employment, despite the fact that work-from-home job contracts have existed for many years, albeit with the finer details of the operations per se not covered by these.
Now, Spain's new distance-working law is set to mop up grey areas, and strategies and guidelines are being worked on at State and regional level to adapt public- and private-sector rôles to this 'new normality'.
The work-from-home legislation is based upon this régime being voluntary on both sides, reversible, and with the company being responsible for certain expenses, including but not limited to the cost of any equipment, such as computers and phones, used in the course of the day's work.
Related Topics
AROUND half of all working hours could be carried out from home within a decade, according to various experts – either 50% of all jobs, or in fact most jobs but with time split between remote-working and the office.
Among those who have been researching what remains a relatively new idea in Spain are government secretary for local administration Víctor Almonacid, who is also an expert in digital law, and Emilio Soro, sociologist and professor of PR and media at Castellón's Jaume I University, who has been studying this concept since the 1990s.
When Professor Soro first began investigating the issues surrounding working from home, it was less practical to do so – internet was not in wide use, at least, not in the majority of offices, and few people owned a laptop or even a desktop computer.
“Within a decade, as much as 50% of work time could be spent in this way, but it obviously depends on the type of job; there are those which could be done 90% from home – although it's always a good idea for some of it to be on the premises, especially those where the employee's position is closely linked to his or her superiors within the organisation – others, of course, cannot be conducted remotely,” Professor Soro says.
Clearly, manufacturing, manual occupations, the service industry such as retail and catering, cannot be transferred to the home, but almost anything office-related which does not need the employee to be in the physical presence of the customer does not necessarily require the staff member to clock in and out and commute, those consulted say.
Professor Nick van Dam of the IE Centre for Corporate Learning and Innovation at the Business Institute University believes 'many variables are involved', but that 'a high percentage of workers will experience distance-working in the next 10 years' – perhaps between one and three days a week out of five.
A recent study by the Bank of Spain found that, even now, around 30% of jobs and working hours could be carried out remotely, and dean of employment psychology at Valencia University, investigator for the Valencian Economic Research Institute (IVIE) and member of the Psychology Academy of Spain, José María Peiró, says: “In general terms, a high percentage of professionals will be working a high percentage of their time remotely – in other words, on a mixed distance-office régime.”
Along with economist Ángel Soler, Peiró has written the report The Increase in Remote Working During Covid-19 and its Challenges, published by the IVIE in May, and in which they both state that the pandemic has forced companies and their staff to focus almost exclusively on working from home – even, in theory, to a far greater extent than that which would have been desirable for the firms involved.
Last year, Spain's National Institute of Statistics (INE) identified a moderate increase in the trend towards working from home, although even then, only 4.8% of people did so – well below the European average.
By May 2020, according to the Bank of Spain, as many as 80% of companies had their staff working at home.
“It's not a new trend,” reveals Nick van Dam.
“Ever since the arrival of the internet, many companies have been starting to allow employees to work remotely.
“The Covid-19 pandemic and the current and future processes of digitalisation of businesses have simply accelerated the trend.”
All the above parties have said lockdown and home-working have proven to be 'quite an incredible social experiment'.
“The prerequisites for this mode of working are all there, in Spain,” adds Peiró – quoting the National Telecommunications Observatory, he says the country is 11th out of 28 European Union member States, a definition which, at the time the statistics were compiled, included the UK, in terms of public services being offered online, in human capital, in connectivity, in use of internet services, and in digital technology integration.
“In technology terms, we're not doing too badly in the way of equipment and digitalisation,” Peiró admits.
So, why is Spain below the European average – or would be below it, if it had not been for lockdown?
“It's mainly cultural reasons rather than any other cause,” he says – and the other experts consulted agreed.
These cultural barriers occur despite the fact that numerous studies have shown working from home actually improves productivity, rather than the reverse.
Advantages
Productivity is one of these. It has been shown time and again that office-based workers, despite all good intentions, tend towards 'presenteeism', or in layman's terms, 'keeping a seat warm'. They are required to clock in at a given time and remain there until another given time, typically an eight-hour day in Spain, but are unlikely to get eight hours' work done.
This may be because of time spent chatting with colleagues, popping onto social media or, even if nothing but actual work happens in the office, the pace of this slows down as the day wears on for 'morning people' or starts off slowly and then speeds up for 'owls', meaning at one point in the schedule, an hour's work is completed in half an hour and at another point, an hour's work takes two hours.
By contrast, those who work at home tend to focus more, spend less time on the job but produce more when they do so, studies have revealed.
Working fewer hours means they are less tired, even if they do not, in fact, do any less work than they would in an office – and the flexibility that home-working often involves helps create a better balance between life and job.
Unless there is a particular business reason for keeping to set hours, some might decide to work at night, or others to get up very early and finish by mid-afternoon, take breaks when they need them rather than when they are 'allowed' to, or stop to collect the children from school and restart later.
Even if staff were more productive at different times of the day, it would not be feasible for an office to open around the clock to cater for this because of overheads, such as utility bills, but this would not be an issue at home.
And, in fact, even where employees spend some of their time in the office – meaning the company does not save on rent or mortgage for a physical premises – overheads can still be reduced, as fewer hours' worth of electricity in lighting and heating or air-conditioning are needed, desks and computers can be shared where staff are in the office on different days, water bills go down from fewer people using the bathrooms or the staff kitchens all at once, and so on.
One school of thought is that a greater emphasis on home-working may cause other industries to suffer, such as cafés and restaurants at lunchtimes and breaktimes, or even the motor trade if people do not need a car to commute; however, this may not be the case: An office-based employee may well go home for lunch, but a home-based employee may feel the need to get right away from the workplace and leave the house to go to a café – also, if at least the odd day here and there are spent in an office, or the staff member lives in an area with limited public transport, a car may be necessary anyway, even if only for grocery shopping and out-of-work leisure activities.
Some employees may thrive on working from home since, although they may be more productive, they might also be more relaxed: They are less nervous about the boss constantly looking over their shoulder.
Another major benefit to a rise in home-working is that it is kinder to the planet: Less travelling means less air pollution, lower emissions, and fewer traffic jams, the latter of which, of course, results in less stress on the rest of the population and fewer road accidents.
Disadvantages
Contrary to what many companies or employers may believe, the disadvantages, according to Nick van Dam, lie not so much in unsupervised workers 'skiving' or 'taking advantage', but in staff exerting themselves too much.
Not learning how to 'switch off', worrying that the actual workload they produce is suddenly thrust into the spotlight and that themselves as humans cease to exist can cause staff to overdo it in an attempt to prove their worth.
Additionally, it can be isolating – relationships between colleagues can become distant as the informal communication between them throughout the day is lost, and employees can feel directionless without having a supervisor on hand to guide them or to refer queries to.
Some of these drawbacks, says Van Dam, are largely the result of widespread remote working in Spain being an 'emergency situation' – thrust upon staff and companies alike very suddenly and with little time to prepare psychologically.
The key, says Professor Soro, lies in firms and staff reaching agreements on the various aspects involved before beginning a distance-working régime, such as hours worked and tasks to be achieved, deadlines, and referral procedures in the case of uncertainties.
“It's crucial to reach a compromise between the needs of workers, companies and customers in terms of objectives,” says Soro.
“Things are never done properly when they arise through emergency situations, but issues can and should be resolved.”
Solutions should come hand in hand with legislation, the various experts believe, and welcome the Council of Ministers' newly-approved Royal Decree, or Bill of Law, which regulates home-based working for the first time ever in Spain.
Until now, remote working was thought to be the territory of freelancers and considered incompatible with actual employment, despite the fact that work-from-home job contracts have existed for many years, albeit with the finer details of the operations per se not covered by these.
Now, Spain's new distance-working law is set to mop up grey areas, and strategies and guidelines are being worked on at State and regional level to adapt public- and private-sector rôles to this 'new normality'.
The work-from-home legislation is based upon this régime being voluntary on both sides, reversible, and with the company being responsible for certain expenses, including but not limited to the cost of any equipment, such as computers and phones, used in the course of the day's work.
Related Topics
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