Initial statement
On the occasion of the pandemic, society tames new relationships with the world which transform the way of conceiving one’s relationship to work, to others and to their distancing. Some people talk about the “covidisationTo describe a multi-faceted phenomenon.
With the covid and the associated statistics accumulating sicknesses and deaths, death has penetrated the collective unconscious. A feeling of vulnerability has developed in a society already struggling with problems of security, terrorism or precariousness. This results in mistrust of another potentially carrying virus and a return to questioning about the meaning of life. Of course the question of work, so fundamental to the identities and socialization of individuals in groups, occupies a central place. This question affects employees: what is important in my work? But also companies that project themselves “business to missio”. The first question that arises is why / for what to meet physically?
How to relate to others incorporates the issue of distance
Face-to-face social distance (with recommendations 4 meters apart!) And online distance with the rise of social networks. Everyone understands better the importance of the quality of presence beyond simple presenteeism. But, what’s the point of meeting physically if everyone is required to keep so far away from the others that even non-verbal communication is made difficult? What is worth being together?
A bit of nature
Depending on whether individuals are inserted into urban or rural fabrics, the relationship with nature has changed. It affects habitat choices. For example, 80% of Parisian executives aspire to a better living environment, having smaller homes than in smaller towns, they experienced confinement as confinement. In Paris, 26% of them actively take action and strive to find new balances by leaving their neighborhoods. Thus, for the first time since the Second World War and despite the installation of many expatriates returning from England following Brexit, the Parisian real estate market is experiencing price reductions (-1.7%) and a drop in apartment sales volumes (-11%).
Schools close in 2020 (3000 fewer students per year since 2016) and the city accentuates its loss of inhabitants. The city is closed to families who have an insufficient budget when the price per average square meter is greater than 10,500 euros. The other large metropolises have very different situations in France and in Europe. Work is part of a more complex equation than just the acquisition of income.
Time of transport
With confinement, in urban metropolises, the conditions of travel to their place of work affect the comfort of everyone’s life (restriction of the supply of transport, inability to sit, overcrowding), staying at home finally appeared to be an acceptable solution, in particular for a population of executives or office workers, living with long transport times. They experienced a different use of their travel time, which significantly improved their quality of life and their possibility of choosing fulfilling activities or family life.
Home working environment
The issue of working conditions at home is the responsibility / possibility of the worker. Working at home does not ask the same questions depending on whether you are alone or whether you have children in school, independent, or requiring a lot of educational attention. Have an identified workspace, suitable equipment, facilitated life balance (childcare, support and local service). The family situation strongly weighs the desire to stay and work at home or on the contrary to escape, due to an inappropriate sound or physical environment. Sometimes shared workspaces (coworking) are a very practical local alternative.
Living spaces and working conditions
Key questions when individuals have experienced deprivation of liberty and constraints, again, real estate statistics show a craze for goods on the outskirts of large urban centers up to 1h30 of transport. Individuals opt for strategies to stay close to a natural living environment and make an effort to transport or, for the more fortunate, invest in a second home.
The salaried contract faces competition from alternative mission proposals with more frequent freelance status. The ways of doing business would escape the sole dogma of subordination link. Alliance links, commercial links, service links that are more flexible over time enrich the range of employer relationships.
Formation
In the work there are also learning activities which have mutated. Either as part of e-training courses organized by companies with a more or less agile transfer of analog practices to digital transpositions, or in the form of informal digital learning. Online groupings have fostered the development of new video practices, with groupware and collective intelligence forms of writing.
The way of learning has been affected, relying on more distant individuals to take on new responsibilities to connect with others and find a common thread. The relationship to knowledge changes, enhancing learning (desire to learn) and reducing constrained sequences.
Adaptation RH
All activities specific to human resources or management, forms of work regulation or work on work, have been adapted:
- interviews (recruitment, framing, project monitoring) are organized remotely with the advantage of promoting co-production and sharing of screens. The situation allows for an augmented reality (superimposition of information elements in the online conversation);
- meetings are held by video (all remote or co-modal). Punctuality could well improve as well as access to easily shareable working documents; informal times, confidences and creative interstices nestle in the asides of chats or phone calls;
- the control of work in terms of quality and quantity also rests partially on the collaborators in a form of self-control and self-organization of working time. Individual production time ranges could be better mastered depending on individual lifestyles. The crucial question is not the control of the means but that of the achievements.
Mutations
Several work scenarios are invented on the occasion of the situations experienced by each:
- Forced work: Undergo organizational decisions when the work can only be done on the site and with the employer’s equipment. Ex: handling of objects, use of specific machine, reception and reception, outdoor work. If work has long been constrained by schedules, or specific exercise conditions, confinement also shows that the place is an important choice for the employer.
- Maintaining known standards: Maintaining routines and maintaining normality, teleworking is not for me / for us, continuing to work as if nothing has changed is a choice made just as much by employees unwilling to explore or satisfied with their situation and employers.
- Opportunistic nomadism: Adopt flexible behaviors according to the situations, alternative choices of work in presence or remotely according to the meetings, events. Negotiation of a share of travel costs, equipment or advantageous working hours, modularity of places and workspaces according to needs.
- Departure and radical change of life: For the individual it is a question of bets on professional reconversion accompanied by a change of place of life, even of profession, of region in order to understand the world, ambitions, criteria of success and the meaning of what fulfilling work is. For companies, it is the choice to reduce the work surfaces to act on the changes in lifestyle and aspiration of their employees and to use the resources thus released in a different way. It is sometimes also the way to reinvent a more distributed management.
Shared responsibilities: individual – company – society
The company as the individual compose with the work the contract “contribution versus remuneration” sufficient to generate a high level of commitment. The situation is such that the individual no longer comes only with the equipment and software that suits him (BYOD), but also with his entire ecosystem, which includes an aspiration for meaning, a satisfactory place to live, margins. freedom in the organization of his time and his location. The more qualified and educated the employee has a professional network, the more important this ecosystem is to them.
The company is being pushed to reorganize itself to take into account the new demands made of it. It is overtaken by politics in the direction of the organization of societal issues (ecology, security, climate, health, mobility), by a need for meaning which goes far beyond mere profit.
The new relationships at work will be the fruit of dialogues between employees, employers and very specific situations which will continue to evolve. In this dynamic, training will occupy its place of assistance in transitions and projections in new situations.
Sources
French prospective society. Post-pandemic outlook
https://www.societefrancaisedeprospective.fr/prospective-post-pandemie/
Wiktionary – Covidisation https://fr.wiktionary.org/wiki/covidisation
PAP Fall in sales and downturn in prices in Paris
https://www.pap.fr/actualites/immobilier-baisse-des-ventes-et-tassement-des-prix-a-paris/a22344
The world – Fall in the number of students in Parisian schools – https://www.lemonde.fr/mmpub/edt/zip/2018/08/30/161755844-86450b3009f3d416d1db8781ffa1918ad2c382cc/index.html
Le parisien- Paris census continues to lose inhabitants for the fourth year in a row https://www.leparisien.fr/paris-75/recensement-paris-perd-encore-et-toujours-des-habitants-pour-la-4e-annee-consecutive-29-12-2020-8416554.php
L’usine Nouvelle – 80% of Parisian executives would dream of leaving Paris
https://www.usinenouvelle.com/article/80-des-cadres-parisiens-reveraient-de-quitter-paris.N431552
Finance.net law – Subordination link
https://droit-finances.commentcamarche.com/faq/40720-lien-de-subordination-definition
RHInfo – Digital informal learning
https://www.rhinfo.adp.com/rhinfo/2020/apprentissage-informel-num%C3%A9rique/
Keywords:
Eformation work relation to work residence telework teletraining
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