A bit about the growth of working from home in Israel after the corona virus.
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The corona virus normalized working from home and turned it into a bargaining chip in the hands of employees.
The research body LADDERS predicts that in 2023, 25% of jobs in North America are expected to be remote.
This figure continues to accelerate the development of technological infrastructures and solutions for working remotely in order to build a hybrid system that effectively combines work from home with the office.
In Israel, the proportion of employees combining remote work in all industries began to decrease in the second quarter of 2021, from 28% during the closure period to 12% on average in April 2021, according to a report by the Bank of Israel. The scope of remote work is high in the hi-tech industries, in the professional services , the scientific and technical, in financial services and insurance. Beyond the influence of hand delivery and the industry, academics, women, parents of children up to the age of 10, Jews (compared to Arabs) and residents of the center of the country are characterized by a wider scope of remote work.
The report also states that "the change that took place in remote work options and its scope during the Corona period may bring about changes in the geographical distribution of economic activity, including in the distances between the employees' residences, and in the spatial distribution of commercial activity."
But while most employees are happy with this new arrangement, employers who want their employees to come to the office every day are in trouble and the big question that is asked again and again is how productive is working from home?
A major Microsoft survey from 2022 surveyed more than 20,000 workers in 11 countries and found that employers and employees disagree about the productivity of working from home.
While 87% of employees feel that they work from home as efficiently or more efficiently than in the office, 54% of managers are not convinced of this and only 12% of them are confident that their team is indeed productive.
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella told the BBC in September that this equation needs to be resolved because it is likely that workplaces will never return to their pre-pandemic habits: "We have to get past what we describe as 'productivity paranoia', because all the data we have It shows that 80% plus of people feel they are very productive - but their management thinks otherwise.
It means there's a real disconnect in terms of expectations and what they're feeling."
In an OWL LABS survey, ninety percent of respondents who worked from home during the pandemic said they were as productive or more productive when working remotely, compared to when they were working from the office. 84% of respondents also shared that remote work after the pandemic Make them happier, and many of them are even willing to take a pay cut in return.
The growth of the hybrid model
"The data we have shows that 80% plus of people feel that they are very productive - but their management thinks otherwise. This means that there is a real disconnect in terms of expectations."
While the percentage of full-time workers from home is declining, the percentage employed in the hybrid model continues to rise.
Employers who were on the fence with their post-corona plans found themselves with a given situation where employees are part of the time at home, and part of the time in the office.
This gave a big boost to the hybrid model, which only in 2021 jumped from 16.5% in the US to 28.4% (Barrero 2022).
Also in the UK, a survey by the Office for National Statistics from 2022 found that between February and May the proportion of hybrid workers rose from 13 % to 24%. Now, 84% of workers forced to work from home due to the coronavirus say they plan to switch to hybrid work.
Another British study found that 94% of employees who previously traveled to work were given the opportunity to recalculate their route and many of them are now interested in a hybrid work solution, where they work at least part of the weekdays from home.
The survey also found that, on average, home workers spend 30 minutes more exercising than their colleagues in the office, save five hours a week while commuting, and have almost 50 extra pounds in their pocket, which are not wasted on travel or office lunches.
The ability to work remotely or in a hybrid model has become a real value proposition for employees and candidates, but if before the pandemic geographic flexibility was considered a bonus, today candidates expect this flexibility as part of the basic offer of the job.
In one word: normalization.
In the new reality, the place of work is no longer a main consideration in the question of where to live.
The potential of hiring employees from anywhere in the world creates an incredible pool from which the employer can choose.
Competition works both ways, raising the standards of both employees and employers.
Companies need to be at the top of their game in terms of employer branding and company culture, to absorb those high-profile workers, and they're on the hunt, no longer obliged to live in the big cities to find the most competitive jobs.
They can take their skills, as well as their income, to the periphery, bringing wealth to areas that have historically always been weaker.
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To the full article
Career changes in the shadow of the corona virus
Global recruiting firm Robert Half found that 50% of professionals who started working from home would quit if forced to return to the office full-time.
In other words, whoever demands that 100% of the work be done in the office is shooting himself in the foot.
But you can't expect just because you offer work from home that you can reduce the wages of the employees.
With employer branding and employee well-being at the forefront, many companies are competing for human capital, which requires employers to be flexible when it comes to work-life balance.
Indeed, an unprecedented number of people have changed jobs since the beginning of the pandemic, a phenomenon that Microsoft called "the great upheaval".
According to the findings of the survey, workers born after 1997, known as the Z ball, are almost twice as likely to change jobs.
"At the peak of the 'Great Upheaval', we saw a year-on-year increase of 50% of LinkedIn members who changed jobs. For Generation Z, this was 90%," the report says. "By 2030, Generation Z will make up about 30% from the entire workforce, so managers need to understand them," said LinkedIn's CEO.
As you might expect, alongside its new observations, Microsoft has new products aimed at alleviating this potential mismatch in expectations.
It focuses on helping the young employees of the companies to feel a sense of belonging to the organization, and the ability to learn in it.
At a virtual Microsoft event held in September 2022, Ryan Roslansky, CEO of Microsoft-owned LinkedIn, said that employers are facing perhaps the biggest change in work patterns in history. In an interview with the BBC, Roslansky said that the number of 100% remote jobs posted on LinkedIn has soared during the pandemic And that out of about 15 million job offers that are usually posted on LinkedIn, only about 2% offered remote work before the pandemic. A few months ago this number was 20%, and in September it dropped to 15%. According to Roslansky, the data indicates that it is possible The remote work trend has already passed its peak.
In a time of acute labor shortages, employers are forced to work harder to recruit, motivate and retain employees.
This also includes Microsoft itself, according to Nadella: "70,000 people joined Microsoft during the pandemic, and they saw Microsoft through the lens of the pandemic. Now, as we think about the next phase, we need to re-energize them, re-mobilize them, and help them form social connections."
And that brings us to the next point.
Remote work policy as an insurance certificate for employers and employees
The combination of private living space and work was challenging for many and required the formulation of new norms, for example, what hours do you work and when do you rest;
how often the work is reported and to whom;
When are team meetings held and when must everyone come to the office.
According to a report by KPMG, about 89% of companies have already introduced or are working on a remote work policy. This illustrates that the vast majority are committed to a future work environment in which remote work is a key factor.
Microsoft employees, for example, can work from home up to 50% of the time as standard , and more than that requires the management's approval or switching to part-time work. But many other companies had difficulty imposing new work arrangements and expectations. Apple had to postpone the return to the offices four times, due to employee resistance. Elon Musk demanded that Tesla employees put in 40 hours a week in the office. In an email he sent to employees He wrote: “If you don't show up for work, we'll assume you quit.” In another case, a London law firm offered to work from home in exchange for a 20% cut in wages.
To take advantage of the trends of working from home effectively, employers create a remote work policy that describes the company's expectations, obligations and rights of home workers and even details risks such as changing tax authorities, permanent establishment and immigration issues so as not to expose the employer or the employees to unnecessary risk.
When it comes to remote work, employees will have a lot of questions and there is no reason for management to have to repeat them every time.
Given that working from home is not a passing trend, building such a policy is a long-term investment as it will allow expanding the scope of remote work in the future and reduce costs for the organization.
At the 25th Eilat conference on labor issues of the Histadrut, Moriah Brot, director of the senior field of labor market regulation in the labor branch, emphasized the tremendous potential of remote work in Israel: "We conducted a study that examined the potential of remote work in Israel, with the help of personnel survey data from the CBS , and while analyzing the hand dispatchers in Israel.
We saw that the potential stands at 47%, a much higher figure than the average in OECD countries where only 38% of employees can work remotely.
In this aspect - Israel is second only to Luxembourg.
We can talk about the tremendous potential in the context of labor productivity, of increasing the scope of employment, and of balancing the workplace, but it starts with much more basic things.
Even if we go by easy assumptions according to which - we spend about an hour and a half a day on the way to work - we reach a situation where we waste about 330 hours, which is about two months of work.
At the beginning of the epidemic, we published an opinion that we understood that in the absence of the series, we must give the employees and employers instructions on how to behave in all kinds of situations, such as for example non-continuous working hours.
An increase in investment in corporate cyber security
It is impossible to talk about remote work without mentioning the crucial importance of perimeter security for the organization.
As more and more organizations and people work remotely and confidential information needs to be accessible to them, the number of phishing attacks increases, which AI technologies have obviously not overlooked.
Hybrid or remote work is a significant threat to information security.
A survey by the SoSafe company determined that 85% of cyber attacks originate from a human factor, and that the human-machine interface is an easy entry point for exploitation through emotional manipulation and social engineering.
The Israeli company Check Point found that 43% of all security breaches originate from insider threats, maliciously or accidentally.
A survey by Sophos shows that 54% of companies claim that their IT departments are not sophisticated enough to deal with advanced cyber attacks.
Another survey by Cisco found that cyber fatigue, or indifference to proactive defense against cyber attacks, affects up to 42% of companies.
According to Varonis, on average, only 5% of companies' portfolios are properly protected and, according to Flashpoint, data breaches exposed 22 billion Internet records in 2021.
All these data point to the imperative need to continue investing in development and training in order to improve the position of organizations to Against cyber threats, especially when it comes to remote work.
Deepening the knowledge about employee tax and legality
The global workforce is still bound by local jurisdiction and it is very important to stay informed about it, especially when recruiting from other countries.
While international recruitment sounds like a dream, corporations have discovered that it can involve complexities when it comes to taxation.
In the Czech Republic, for example, the remote work situation is not safe.
Clarifications on these issues will be necessary for companies that want to work on the world stage.
While a comprehensive accounting program can handle global taxation requirements, there is no substitute for an employee with 'feet on the ground', as they are likely to know the terrain better than you.
There is much more to say and do but there is no doubt that working from home is here to stay.
To read more about the interrelationship between remote work and human resources, visit our article archive.
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