Teleworking is here to stay

Earlier this month, both the World Health Organization (WHO) and the International Labor Organization (ILO) highlighted that teleworking changed the traditional employment patterns worldwide and was set to stay with several advantages.

Although this working method is not a novelty in the world, its fast expansion as a result of the pandemic and biosecurity measures actually was.

In addition to representing a valid alternative —when performed as it should be— that has made it possible to avoid contagion and, at the same time, enable not a few workers to maintain the employment relationship and thus earn a salary, while contributing to keep the economy of their respective countries safe, it also brings other benefits.

The ILO and the WHO pronounced themselves on these advantages in a technical report prepared jointly on healthy and safe teleworking, where both organizations state that this type of employment improves the balance between work and personal life, offers the possibility of flexible hours and physical activity, while contributing to the reduction of vehicle traffic and the time spent traveling, allows a reduction in air pollution, and this, altogether with the aforementioned, would contribute to better physical and mental health and social well-being, which translated into an increased productivity and reduced operating costs for many businesses.

Teleworking can also pose risks for workers, according to the report, especially when it is not properly planned and if health care and security are not available. Among these risks, both agencies of the United Nations Organization pointed to isolation, exhaustion, depression, domestic violence, musculoskeletal and other injuries, as well as increased consumption of tobacco and alcohol.

When you spend a long time in front of the screen, with the consequent excessive lengthening of the working day, this can lead, experts noted, to conflicts between work and family, social isolation, as well as weight gain due to a sedentary lifestyle.

However, these are avoidable risks. The director of the WHO Department of Environment, Climate Change and Health, María Neira, specified that “nearly two years after the pandemic breakout, it has become very clear that teleworking can easily bring health benefits, but it can also have a dire effect. Which way the balance tips depends entirely on governments, employers and employees working together, as well as on agile and imaginative occupational health services aimed at putting in place policies and practices that benefit both workers and employees.”

In fact, even considering risks, the effect of this type of work activity has been very positive. So much so that, according to the report whose data has been multiplied by news agencies and other media, in Europe teleworking grew from 11 to 48%, while in Latin America and the Caribbean more than 23 million workers moved to this type of employment only in the second quarter of 2020.

Teleworking in Cuba

Even though since 2013 the Labor Code has made room for teleworking with Law No. 116, issued on December 20, 2013, it was not until the pandemic breakout that this working method gained strength.

However, the Ministry of Labor and Social Security (MTSS) recognizes remote work in the text. It is still pending, in the Cuban labor context, published on its official website, that "in Cuba, there is a centralized management model in the working style of many executives, according to which, if the manager is not supervising, or rather controlling subordinates in person, the subordinate will not do his or her job effectively.”

To reach this conclusion, they based on recent research carried out in Cuba by the School of Psychology of the University of Havana, which, among other conclusions, showed that one of the main myths associated with remote work or teleworking is that you work less if not in office. This, as a result of the entrenched idea that performance should be evaluated by attendance and not by proven results. It is tradition, they note, to associate job evaluation with the number of face-to-face hours in the workplace.

The MTSS article states that “research has shown that when freedoms are offered to make decisions, create, and take initiative, subordinates develop these skills, in addition to a sense of responsibility, motivation and commitment to work, enhancing their results.”

But to achieve it, this work method requires control not for economic performance, but for work terminated, which is why it requires staff and technicians capable of defining specific tasks and a date for their termination, as well as compatibility and cooperation between other workers working remotely or in-person at the office. “In-person work does not necessarily mean high performance.”

From this conviction, the President of the Republic himself, Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez, urged at a meeting with the Council of Ministers to boost remote work, teleworking, and non-face-to-face digital procedures. He stated all these aspects were improved during the COVID-19 pandemic, but we have been going backwards.

Days before, during a meeting to evaluate the government management of the Ministry of Finance and Prices based on science and technological innovation, the also first secretary of the Central Committee of the Party had insisted on taking advantage of the experiences gained in the last couple of years of confrontation to COVID-19, while urging to foster teleworking, remote work and the expansion of procedures digitally.

If the pandemic left us these lessons, we have to maintain and promote them, he pointed out.

Translated by Sergio A. Paneque Díaz / CubaSí Translation Staff