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▲ Source: Yiou Think Tank
But in fact, the realization of telecommuting is very attractive to both employers and employees.
For companies, a work model that is no longer restricted to office scenarios will greatly reduce the company’s employment costs, and it will be possible to recruit talents with the same skills in underdeveloped areas; for employees, working from home not only saves commuting The cost of time and money may also lead to better work results. “China Youth Daily” survey shows that about 52% of employees said that working from home improves efficiency, while only 19% hold the opposite view. And Liang Jianzhang, chairman of Ctrip’s board of directors, conducted experiments with his own company as early as 10 years ago and found that employees’ performance increased by 13% in 9 months of telecommuting, and the company’s total factor productivity increased by 20% to 30%.
Obviously, in China, the demand for remote office is not small, and the existing technology basically meets the requirements from the supply side. However, Chinese white-collar workers still have a long way to go from normalized telecommuting, and the core lies in the lack of a guarantee system.
In China’s current labor law, the nature of remote work is not clearly defined. Zhang Yinghui, a lecturer at the School of Law of East China Normal University, said, “The current judgment standards for labor relations do not fully consider the characteristics of the weakening of the attributes of remote work organizations, which makes remote work a means for employers to implement hidden employment.”
In traditional labor law, personal subordination is an important basis for judging labor relations, while in remote work, employees have flexible working hours and less dependence on the company. The employment model that tends to cooperate has caused many legal disputes. . In 2017, a contracted anchor of a certain platform was sued by the plaintiff for the live broadcast on another platform. Although the court finally ruled that the anchor violated the platform agreement, whether the “cooperative” labor relationship that does not need to sit on duty is established is still a legal blind spot.
▲ In 2013, Yahoo prohibited employees from telecommuting
Indeed, the handling of interpersonal relationships in the team will bring unnecessary internal friction, and the increase in work efficiency brought about by remote work has also been confirmed by many studies. However, only on-site communication can bring about the collision of ideas between mental workers, and many inspirations are born from this.
When talking about the “concentration” of innovation, economist Zhou Qiren also said that only contacts, collisions and cooperation can increase the concentration of a place, and the increase in concentration will bring energy and influence. For innovative companies in the growth stage, such a concentration is even more essential. Many products are born from a fleeting idea, but video conferencing software that can only serve as a simple transmission of information may never replace the sparks of thought in cafes and conference rooms.
Is working from home really as good as we thought? Perhaps it is more important to find the most suitable form of work for the company and employees than blindly chasing the trend of telecommuting.
Reference materials:
“The Labor Contract Law of the People’s Republic of China”, “Remote Work Promotion Law”
“Legal Protection of New Type of Labor Relations in the Form of Remote Work”, Zhang Yinghui
“The Three Core Changes in the Era of Telecommuting after Paradigm Shift”, Xu Siyan
“Handling of Legal Issues in Remote Work Modes such as Home Office”, Guan Xingwu
“The History of Remote Work, 1560-Present”, Toptal