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Human Resources: “After the crisis, the reluctance towards working remotely will be shattered”
Christophe Bys

French companies discover that working from home is possible, when for years the obstacles
seemed insurmountable. This is one of the ongoing developments in human resources identified
by Mercer firm. Raphaële Nicaud, head of Talent practice at Mecer, comments on the
developments underway for L’Usine Digitale.

The Digital Factory: Being that you observe the working methods, what do you think is the
highlight of the Covid 19 outbreak?
Raphaële Nicaud: Besides the health crisis itself, we are witnessing a crisis in the way of
working, and also, less visibly, in digital connectivity. Many people find it difficult to connect
and work, especially in families where everyone needs to work simultaneously.

We also witnessed a business continuity crisis. The first week after the “stay-at-home” order,
industrial sites closed to adapt to the new constraints. We also became aware of our dependence
on supply chains.

Current events accelerate the developments underway. By the end of 2019, there was a
slowdown of economic activity, but it is now growing. Likewise, it was clear that branch heads
were changing the ways of work, and of training the workforce. In the current international
survey that we are conducting, we have asked if training expenses would decrease in the
company and 72% [of respondents] contrarily disagreed. There was an awareness that it was
going to be necessary to requalify employees to support economic and technological
developments.

Will this have an impact on the issue of workers’ well-being?

This is a fundamental trend liked moreover to the previous question. In training people, the
company will be more and more present in education, for example financial management. It is
very common in the United States and is emerging in France. Companies have understood that
financial problems have a negative impact on employee productivity. A person who has to face
difficulties in this area has their spirit elsewhere. Branch heads have thus constituted that the
middle class is encountering difficulties, as the movement of the yellow vests has shown in
France.

What do you think of the sudden and massive use of remote work, including in
organization that were slowed down [because of the pandemic]?
According to our survey, 86% of organizations have implemented working from home. We have
identified several restraints. There are restraints linked to the tools: the employees were not
always equipped with a computer or a quality internet connection to participate in video
conferences. Then there was distrust at several levels of the organization. Some of them, in
France in particular, unlike the Anglo-Saxon world, always asked themselves what employees
were doing when working electronically, with the idea that workers worked less if they were far
away [from the workplace]. The human resource directors also often restrain for legal reasons.
All of these ideas will be shattered, because everyone will have seen that these were false
problems and that it will become very difficult to keep the same rhetoric before and after [the
pandemic].

A cultural difference will remain. In countries with Latin traditions, we like to be at work
together. In Anglo-Saxon countries, this tendency is weaker. People in London have been
working remotely for a long time. The real estate there is so expensive that people live far from
their place of work and working remotely is common, to avoid long travel time.

Is it really working remotely? Or is it some sort of improvised DIY, working from home
asking for tools, methods, a culture? Paradoxically does this not risk harming working
remotely because we will have in mind the problems encountered by a lack of
organization?
Working remotely is in itself a crisis. Conditions improve as we do everything, as and to the
extent to which, we achieve that which had not been thought of before. In companies which
authorized punctual remote working. In this context, the problems were less salient because it
was one day a week that the next day the employee would return to the office. It is especially this
way of doing things that has met its limits. During this crisis, branch heads became aware that
working remotely must be thought out and organized, and they are going to get down to it.

What advice would you give to a person working remotely for the first time in their lives?
Paradoxically, I will insist on the need to preserve the time spent not working. I read here and
there that during the quarantine certain employees, often women, work early in the morning and
late in the evening, or even on weekends. I think we have to keep the pace of a working day. You
also have to be careful not to have extended days. We quickly get caught up in the video
meetings and calls that follow. I know it is easier said than done: We know what we have to do,
we have read it, but we do not always get there on a personal level.