Remote work during the health crisis (and after): reinvent your profession!

The company is no longer a place solely focused on production and profit. Employee wellbeing, both physical and psychological, is a strategic issue for maintaining their motivation and efficiency. Adjustments are being introduced, sometimes tentatively: flexible hours, installation of exercise rooms on company premises, remote work. While the latter looks set to grow significantly in light of the news at the beginning of 2020, it is prompting broader reflection on work and how it is carried out.

Remote work becomes widespread during the coronavirus health crisis

Often seen as a comfort element whose necessity had to be proved, remote work took on a new meaning during the health crisis: to save lives. Reflection on how work is evolving and the way it is carried out was reinforced, giving ideas – and desires – to many employees.

Benefits that are widely praised

Some people have long known the personal benefits of remote work. The comfort of working from home, initially, balanced by the lack of social connection with colleagues and the need for face-to-face moments. Part-time remote work balances all of this.

The other major benefits relate, on one hand, to daily organisation: simplified childcare, customisable hours, extra sleep from eliminating commute time. On the other hand, there is a collective benefit: less traffic and pollution, with an induced effect of reduced collective stress.

The company benefits as well

Remote work is part of the company as a factor in employee wellbeing. Furthermore, economies of scale can be made on operating costs. In terms of productivity, results are good or even excellent, as demonstrated by the Ministry of Economy and Finance, with a study to back it up.

Moreover, technology is ready to enable massive evolution in this area, thanks to the many video conferencing tools and the Internet network.

Traditional work has been questioned for a long time

But when we talk about remote work, we are mainly referring to the recent evolution within companies, most often of significant size. The aspirations to exercise one’s professional activity differently do not date from 2020 and have taken shape in several ways.

The multiplication of self-employed workers

France has more than three million self-employed workers. The desire to emancipate from managerial authority and the willingness to organise one’s daily life according to one’s personal context are certainly major reasons for the development of this multifaceted entrepreneurship for which INSEE provides precise statistics.

The phenomenon is accompanied by companies’ demand to outsource an increasing number of tasks to the benefit of freelancers. They thus free themselves from payroll costs and training needs, gaining flexibility in return.

Furthermore, coworking spaces for independents are multiplying in major cities, allowing them to find the notion of “colleagues” while maintaining total autonomy.

Membership within networks: supported independence

Another way to create one’s own employment is to join a network, a principle that exists today in many fields. In principle, this membership can be exercised in two distinct ways: carry out services related to one’s own expertise and benefit from the network’s advantages, or offer products for sale on behalf of the network.

In both cases, the accompanying company provides management, communication and training tools, intended to relieve the independent of low added-value tasks or to help them develop their skills. The independent remains their own boss and pays the network for the help it provides, via commissions, and gains the feeling of belonging to the group.

A concrete example in strong development

There is one field where both forms of taking independence are today being used and becoming commonplace: real estate. Success is all the greater because it is an activity that does not suffer from a lack of social connection, the profession consisting of creating it.

Independent agents

Subject to total autonomy, independent estate agents most often work from home and manage all the processes of sales support, sales accompaniment and activity management.

True business owners, they must necessarily maintain a personal network in order to detect buying and resale opportunities as quickly as possible in an extremely competitive sector. All while managing the administrative side of sales, communication and accounting for their activity. Not always straightforward, especially since they can only count on themselves during lean periods like the health crisis. Which leads many of them to turn towards a more collective organisation.

Estate agent delegates

Field agents with a real estate network that is both localised and centralised, they represent the evolution of the profession experiencing the most significant growth. For a percentage (sometimes small) on commissions, the parent company provides essential tools for management, communication, the legal side – in short, everything needed to allow the field agent to concentrate on what they are most passionate about: relations with their buyer and seller clients.

As communication and information research operates at a national or even international level, the estate agent delegate can additionally benefit from leads that lighten their commercial effort. We can observe a central point in the evolution of work here: everyone seeks to minimise the constraints of their professional activity in order to spend more time carrying out more satisfying tasks, in terms of added value or passion for their profession.

It seems obvious that the health crisis related to the coronavirus will certainly have an impact on professional aspirations. Suddenly confined at home, employees who have never used remote work before may feel desires for independence or activities carried out differently. The global reflection is only just beginning, in light of barrier measures and social distancing that look set to continue. Companies, by organising themselves around these imperatives, are at the heart of a renewal that many of us would like to call the “world after”.