From sporadic home office to digital nomadism, the new office is yet to come

Before finishing the talk, Laura Ripani, head of the Labor Markets Division of the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), asked Eliana Bracciaforte, co-founder of the work platform freelance Workana, imagine yourself in the year 2030, open Twitter and see the conversation trends, what would they be? Something about digital nomadshe replied, but in a context where this way of working is totally normal.

Your answer is not futuristic, of course it has nuances because not all occupations they can do that way and social inequalities impose barriers. But to understand what Eliana Bracciaforte exposed, let’s go back to the past and the present.

During the most difficult stage of the covid-19 pandemic, teleworking was the solution to continue productivity and maintain jobs, Laura Ripani recalled when opening the conversation Future of work: Is the office as we know it over?

One of the results is that “many people got used to working remotely and did not want to go back to the pre-pandemic stage. A little by force, we show that we can make a living and produce outside the officeoutside the factory”, said the economist.

Even occupations where they did not consider doing it, they worked from home. “Telemedicine is an example, but we have also seen tasks associated with agriculture, mining, they can also be done in remote work”. This process is so present that the countries that reject it “will be left behind in attracting investment and talent,” he said.

However, neither the States nor technology have been able to keep up with these social changes. Regarding the first, it was the pandemic that promoted the legal regulations of teleworking in Colombia, Argentina and Mexico. But “it is necessary to define the rights and obligations of work freelancefor example, so that they have access to a lot of benefits that they should have”, pointed out Eliana Bracciaforte.

In short, labor laws are in their infancy, said the entrepreneur.

Why do you want me to go to the office?

Eliana Bracciaforte always had a problem with traditional work, told in the conversation with Laura Ripani. The logic of arriving at the office very early was not for her. She then went to work at Google, which “from that moment on she gave us laptops to all, which was not normal in the year 2006, we paid for the Internet at home, in the airports”.

Not that the company had a remote work policy, in fact, “they wanted you to go to the office.” Rather, she understood that in this way the staff could be productive wherever they were.

But the development of technology still did not see remote work as a seam. The connection was not stable, there were no video calls and other tools that allow you to connect to a computer without the need for a traditional office. Now millions of people can work remotely.

So, can we say that the office is finished or is it still alive? Ripani asked him. “It depends on what you mean by office”, answered Eliana Bracciaforte. “First, you have to stop thinking work as a placeThat’s something that broke.”

The positive side that a traditional office offers us is the human connection, but working virtually does not mean that there will be no meetings, “we need to see each other”. The logic now is: “Give me a reason why my presence in the office will give us something different.” And there another process explodes: creating different projects that are worth traveling for.

If people like her used to question why she should come to the office so early, now there is a greater demand on her right to own time and to well-being. “We are in a crisis and there is a tug of war that is going to cost” to resolve, especially if the companies do not realize that.

Another idea that organizations must change is to stop seeing remote work only to save money in offices. For the co-founder of Workana, that budget should be used for travel, invest in digital tools or face-to-face meetings that are primarily social and not work related.

The weirdos, the digital nomads

the shadow of home office it is precisely that the working person “you don’t see it” and there can be no home inspections. However, there are many advantages, Eliana Bracciaforte pointed out, for example, for people with disabilities who find it difficult to get around. And if the company’s facilities are not adequate, that type of employment is better, she added.

It is also very helpful in a society where women continue to do much of the care work, the flexibility of teleworking allows them to allocate their time. But for there to be true inclusion, companies must change their way of working for projects and, of course, they must “equalize the work of men and women at home.”

The path we are on is allowing us to see other horizons, such as a day that is not strictly eight hours or a work week that is not five or six and a half days.

It is inevitable that this will change, said Eliana Bracciaforte. But it is not necessary to seek to work four established days, but to have the freedom to manage those schedules us and us, he said.

For all this, imagine a 2030 with working people spending long stays in cities where they don’t have their homes, but from there they chose to work for a while, “where digital nomads are no longer a strange race and the rest envy them, but rather The normality”.

Then we will see “much more project-based work, people without a defined role, choosing the projects they want to be part of. I would love for that to happen more, it is what I want to happen and I see that it is already beginning to happen”.