In total, according to Rosstat, about 1.5 million Russians now work remotely.
Photo: Svetlana MAKOVEEVA
Do you remember spring 2020? Empty streets, masks on the faces of rare passers-by, safe distance signs everywhere. But what is most unusual for most Russians is the massive transition to remote work and study. In many families, the team had to be divided according to a schedule. “When will this end?” we thought. It’s been 4 years, but many of us no longer want to return to offices. Or maybe it’s not necessary? Komsomolskaya Pravda decided to find out what remote work has taught us, how effective working from home is and whether the remote format has a chance to remain in our lives for a long time.
RETURN IS A BAD Omen
“Remote work is not a modern invention,” recalls Alexander Safonov, professor at the Financial University of the Government of the Russian Federation. – People began to talk very actively about the remote format in the late 70s in the United States, when the first personal computers appeared. They say that soon it will not be necessary to go to the offices. Do you think remote work didn’t exist in the 19th century? The same street vendors and insurance agents are just a format of remote work. Even in the Middle Ages, home labor was used, when raw materials were transported to peasants’ houses, and then the finished products were taken away: peasant women, for example, wove linen at home. This is, is and will be remote work.
However, since the end of the pandemic, the number of employees working from home has been decreasing both in Russia and around the world. To the question “Does your company have employees who work remotely?” In May 2020, almost 60% of respondents answered affirmatively, and by the end of 2023 this figure was already less than 40% (data from the Superjob service). In most companies where remote work is still practiced, no more than 10% of employees work outside the office.
In total, according to Rosstat, about 1.5 million Russians now work remotely. And this is 50 times more than before the pandemic: then there were about 30,000. These data were presented at the Eastern Economic Forum by the Minister of Labor and Social Protection Anton Kotyakov. And at the height of the anti-Covid restrictions, according to the Ministry of Labor, more than 5 million people carried out their work tasks from home.
In the long term, 10% of working Russians will work remotely, the agency predicts. “In numerical terms, there are about 5.5 million workers,” the ministry’s press service reported. But this number also includes those who will work in a combined work modality, that is, they will combine work at home and in the office.
EMPLOYERS HAVE RETURNED
Remote work is being phased out quite actively around the world. Thus, Mark Zuckerberg introduced mandatory visits to the office of his organization at least 3 times a week. Although back in 2020 he said that “remote work will increase prosperity in the United States.” Twice a week, employees of the most “remote-oriented” company, Zoom, must be present in the workplace. Same story on Amazon. Snapchat CEO Evan Spiegel proudly said in 2020: “Remote work will allow you to spend more time with your family.” But now it has forced employees to visit the office at least four times a week. Company X (formerly Twitter) recently decided to discontinue the remote format entirely. The situation is similar in Russia: Yandex, for example, has abandoned full-fledged remote work.
“There is currently an interesting phenomenon in the labor market: employers are trying to reduce the number of remote employees as much as possible, and workers themselves are more inclined towards a fully remote or hybrid format,” notes professional consultant Galina Bobkova. – Remote work has disappointed companies not only in our country, but around the world, which is why in recent years we have seen a massive return of staff to the offices. From 2020 to 2023, the proportion of managers who viewed this format positively decreased from 55% to 28%.
REMOVAL EFFICIENCY
What leads managers to abandon remote work, which they recently liked so much? The fact is that you cannot spread emotions with bread. The main issue that concerns employers is the quality of work and labor productivity. And here everything turns out to be not so rosy.
However, according to Professor Alexander Safonov, there is still no reliable and objective evidence in the world of the effectiveness or, on the contrary, of the ineffectiveness of the remote format from the point of view of business economics. After all, productivity is influenced by many factors and, in each specific case, the remote format can contribute to its growth and, on the contrary, worsen performance.
We can say with confidence that with the transition to remote work, people are starting to work longer; Many studies indicate that the average workday of a remote employee is increasing. The company Stakhanovets (which resides in the information technology group of the Skolkovo Foundation) found that employees work from home almost one and a half days a month more than from the office. But this referred to the first months of quarantine, but after an increase in productivity, many companies recorded their gradual decline.
And the longer employees stayed remote, the more companies reported a drop in productivity. According to the analytical service Vocon, if in April 2020 56% of surveyed companies around the world reported excellent productivity of remote work, in the fall of the same year 40% of them noted a decrease in efficiency and spoke of exhaustion. your remote employees.
In the long term, 10% of Russian workers will work remotely.
Photo: Shutterstock
SPECIAL QUALITIES
What about the remote format? The Russian company Ecopsy Consulting carried out a large-scale study on this topic, analyzing the work of 4,500 employees of retail, pharmaceutical, IT, food industry and retail companies. It turned out that the remote format requires people to have a set of special qualities that not everyone has. In addition, for normal office work, they are not so important and can even harm the employee. And employers certainly don’t give them much importance when hiring candidates.
What qualities are we talking about?
First of all, nine universal characteristics (that is, necessary for an employee in any work format): responsibility, diligence, determination, discipline, desire for self-development, initiative, mutual assistance, systemic thinking and the ability to think in economic categories (business ). thought).
And for the remote control to be effective, in addition to the above, five more unique qualities are needed:
1. The ability to learn and adjust plans quickly (adaptability);
2. Willingness to talk honestly about problems and express one’s opinion (openness);
3. The ability to easily find a common language with employees of other departments (cross-functional interaction);
4. The ability to unite others to achieve one’s goal (informal leadership);
5. The ability to make long-term decisions (long-term thinking).
Of course, many employers declare in words that they always need flexible, open-minded and forward-thinking employees. In fact, the executives who “survive” best in offices are those who do not interfere with their “special” opinions, who are willing to accept other people’s rules and solve immediate problems without pretending to be strategic thinkers.
Ecopsy Consulting concluded that only 8.7% of employees have developed unique qualities necessary specifically for remote work. They can still be effective in a remote format, but others don’t do it very well. For this reason, back in 2020, business analysts warned: if organizations continue working remotely after the end of the pandemic, their work productivity will decrease.
MEASURABLE RESULTS ARE IMPORTANT
“Productivity and productivity depend not so much on the work format as on the personal qualities of the employee,” agrees Galina Bobkova. – And also the level of fluidity of the company’s work processes and management systems.
The effectiveness of the remote format depends, of course, on the type of activity. The Stakhanovets company has determined that the leaders in productivity outside the office are programmers, designers and marketers. According to the Productivity from the Couch study, these professionals are 41% more committed to their work processes than other office workers.
“Remote employees work more effectively in those positions where there can be a specific, measurable result of their work, and not where there is a constant process that extends over time,” says Galina Bobkova.
According to the expert, “other things being equal,” most of the time when working remotely, the effectiveness of employees involved in operational activities (i.e., solving common and routine business tasks) decreases. These include accountants, corporate lawyers, human resources managers, secretaries, and executive assistants.
Only 8.7% of employees have developed unique qualities needed specifically for remote work.
Photo: Shutterstock
WHATS NEXT?
Hybrid schedule wins
The remote format clearly has weaknesses, but it is no longer possible to uproot it from our lives. Many organizations are trying to offset the disadvantages of remote work by introducing a hybrid work schedule, in which employees can work part from home and part from the office. With this option, management has the feeling of having better control over work discipline. Furthermore, the hybrid format becomes a carrot. According to Stakhanovets, 80% of office workers say they would be more loyal if they could choose where they work at least one or two days a week. And a third of respondents are considering moving to an employer willing to use a hybrid format.
Remote and hybrid work schedules are now offered to selected and scarce categories of employees, for whom this format becomes an additional motivation to work in this particular company. Most often we talk about programmers, sales managers, engineers and accountants. Natalya Golovanova, director of the Superjob research center, spoke about this.
Of course, the hybrid form is not applicable across the board. You cannot work remotely in agriculture or transportation. But whenever possible, it will be used. First of all, because this format increases the attractiveness of the organization in the labor market. And personnel shortage is now one of the main problems of the economy. According to Professor Alexander Safonov, flexible working hours have already become an important criterion when searching for jobs for qualified employees who do not want to return to “office slavery.”
“Now employers are forced to take into account the wishes of employees,” says Galina Bobkova. – The trend of the future, in my view, is flexible forms of employment and work schedules. Fully remote employees will not work predominantly as employees, but as freelancers and sole proprietors. In this status, workers do not have a fixed salary, they receive it for a specific result, and this disciplines them greatly.
ASK FROM THE EDGE
Why managers don’t trust remote work
“According to many employers, the remote work format has more disadvantages than advantages,” says career consultant Galina Bobkova. “It seems to them that the level of communication is suffering, the team spirit is eroding, there are doubts about the productivity of remote employees and the level of control over them is decreasing.
“Remote work turned out to be a difficult test, especially for businessmen,” agrees Alexander Safonov. – And the main problem here is rather psychological. There are problems of labor discipline not only on the part of the employees, but also on the part of the management. After all, many managers find it easier to walk into an office and yell at their subordinates than to write detailed technical specifications and think about a motivation and control system. In addition, bosses are constantly haunted by the idea that their subordinates may be working for someone else at the same time.
REMOTE MAN’S DICTIONARY
Can you hear me?
Can you hear it now?
Comrades, who hasn’t turned off the microphone?
Sorry, I have children nearby.
For some reason the button was not pressed for a long time!
Who is this iPhone 12? Is it really not possible to sign with your real names?
Sorry, they kicked me out.
Will you be in the office next week?
CLEARLY
In what area of work do your company’s employees who work remotely currently work?
Information technology 39%
Personnel/HR management 19%
Some office staff 14%
Accounting/finance 11%
Call center 11%
Designers/builders 10%
Sales/customer service 8%
Law 6%
Marketing 6%
Logistics 6%
Purchases/supply 3%
Economy 3%
Others (design, analysis, estimates, engineering, document management, editing, etc.) 19%
Data: Superwork. Respondents had the opportunity to indicate more than one response option.
ONLY NUMBERS
75% of people believe they are more productive when working from home.
23% of employees are willing to receive less for working from home at least part of the time.
Small businesses are 2x more likely to hire full-time remote workers.
83% of employees who occasionally work remotely feel happier than when they work exclusively in the office.
40% of workers consider flexible schedules the main advantage of remote work.
84% of remote workers work from home when they could work from anywhere.
