Home working: French companies pushing employees to return to office

FRANCE 24 English

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00:00Jean-Philippe has not set foot in his company for two months, at least not physically.

00:06I have a virtual office here.

00:09The 30 employees at his workplace work from home 100% of the time.

00:14They have even implemented an application for virtual interaction.

00:18For example, if I want to talk to my colleague, all I have to do is move my avatar over to Ben's desk.

00:26Which he admits can't replace all benefits of time spent face-to-face, and his routine is not the status quo in France.

00:34In 2023, one in five employees worked from home, but only 24% did so three or more days per week.

00:42And most employees only work remotely once or twice a week.

00:46For some employers, they hope to see it disappear altogether.

00:50Last week, global tech company Amazon ordered staff back to the office full-time.

00:55And other leaders, such as the head of French cosmetic company L'Oréal, are vehemently against 100% remote working.

01:02Views that are not shared by most workers.

01:06They don't like the arbitrary constraints.

01:10It's becoming less and less acceptable to ask an employee to come in when they're going to spend the day video conferencing.

01:17It is even the main requirement of some candidates for recruitment.

01:22They ask questions like, what is your remote working policy?

01:26I think it's hard for companies to be competitive if they don't offer the flexibility.

01:31Conditions that aren't inclusive of the whole workforce, given many cannot work from home at all due to the nature of their job.

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