The lives of Spaniards changed on March 14, 2020. The Government declared a state of alert due to the coronavirus and the public was forced to confine themselves to their homes. The main concern was the health crisis, but the situation of the economy and the work organization also played a key role. With an entire country unable to leave, the time for telecommuting had arrived.
Overnight, many moved the office into their homes. Companies have discovered that it is possible for employees to perform many of their usual tasks remotely. The sale of laptops has multiplied and applications such as Zoom or Teams have become common, not only to see family and friends, but to organize virtual meetings. When the brunt of the pandemic passed, the number of workers doing their work from home had plummeted. multiplied by three, according to the National Observatory of Technologies and Society (ONTSI) of the Ministry of Economy and Digital Transformation.
With the drastic reduction in mobility, environmental pollution has given serious respite. Experts have warned: if teleworking becomes widespread, emissions will drop significantly. A study by the Institute of Environmental Sciences and Technologies of the Autonomous University of Barcelona has quantified this advantage: the implementation of the telework system two, three or four days a week would reduce nitrogen dioxide (NO2) levels —the main pollutant linked to traffic emissions— by 4%, 8% and 10% respectively. Another study, published by the National Bureau of Economic Research in Cambridge, Massachusetts (USA) also quantified the time we save on commuting if we work from home: on average, 63 minutes per day.
But that scenario never quite came to pass. Once the spike in coronavirus cases has passed and restrictions eased, telecommuting was also down. In 2021, 17.6% of employed people in Spain (3.3 million people) did their work from home. A year later, in 2022, that percentage has dropped to 14%, according to the Information and Communications Technology (ICT) Equipment and Use Survey.
Face-to-face culture
What happened? According to José Luis Bosch, director of human resources at OBS Business School, “there are two aspects to take into account: one related to the functioning of companies and another that has more to do with the productive structure of Spain,” he explains. “The first is face-to-face culture: employers like us to be in the office. This face-to-face is linked to the culture of leadership, order and command. In my opinion, the origin of this way of thinking is the army. Military service and its mode of operation was an essential part of the training of those who are today executives in their fifties or sixties”.
The other element to take into account is, for Bosch, the business model from Spain. “It is a country of services. There are many jobs that by their nature cannot be done from home. For this reason, once the pandemic passed, many employees for whom teleworking is not a viable model began to return to their jobs,” he explains. “Spain has inherited a very familiar way of understanding business, far removed from businesses in other countries where owners and CEOs are only looking for pure profit. Here the boss is always going to inspect the facilities, being flattered by employees or doing things that subordinates should do.This in other countries has gone down in history.
That said, will teleworking eventually prevail? “I think that some things will eventually happen, but for that it is important that they are implemented, for example, in public administration,” says Bosch. “The case of Portugal is paradigmatic: civil servants will start working 32 hours a day with much more teleworking. For this to happen in Spain, the productive model and the city have to change: we have to move towards a more local life, something that works well if the public system it works well,” says Bosch. “This is where school and health come in: not all towns or neighborhoods have good schools and good hospitals. This means more displacement and, at the same time, generates inequalities.”
Overall, the future may lie in telecommuting. “Startups are clearly betting on this. I think we are gradually moving towards a hybrid model which for me is ideal: combining the office with teleworking. It’s true that we missed an opportunity, but we still have time, ”he concludes.