Telework as a business innovation model

On 11 March 2020, the World Health Organisation (WHO) declared a global pandemic status for the coronavirus. As a result of the drift of this pandemic and the confinement of millions of people around the world, companies were forced to relocate the work of their offices, this is when teleworking arrives, and is an advance in every way, from the perspective of the development of work, processes, or the corporate or business culture itself, since from this moment the possibility of maintaining teleworking as a viable work option as any other is valued.

We must also understand that teleworking implies a cultural change in the work model, and in cases such as Spain, where the culture of face-to-face work is very important, it will require a greater cultural change than in countries with a more visible teleworking culture such as Holland, Sweden, or Iceland, with figures of over 30%.

This new window of opportunity has led to the advance of digital businesses such as e-commerce, and it also favours, and will do so to an even greater extent, those people who possess skills or knowledge of digital media. In this way, specialists in Big Data, data analysis, Artificial Intelligence, BlockChain, Cybersecurity…

In addition, more and more work are being done on applications, programmes and tools that enable and facilitate the development of teleworking. We see tools for communication within the company, such as Yammer or Telegram. Tools for working together, such as Dropbox, Google Drive or Cloudwork. Tools for holding meetings and working on information together, such as Hangouts, Skype, Zoom, Teams…

In short, teleworking is a tool that has been highlighted in the wake of the global pandemic of COVID-19, but which can bring benefits in the workplace beyond this, in the long term. Moreover, this dynamic is a form of innovation and if it can be incorporated intelligently and effectively in companies, it will even increase the efficiency and profitability of work. This work dynamic is not yet fully established in all European countries, but in the next few years it is very likely that we will see the model gaining momentum and becoming the future of many companies in all European countries.