Zetaideas

A big topic of 2020 has been smartworking, something that the coronavirus pandemic has forced many to do. Now that we are starting to talk about post-pandemic life, smart working remains an idea both businesses and workers are thinking about. On paper I think smart working is amazing, it allows workers to save time and money on their commute and work from a place of their choice, ideally a coworking space which encourages them to meet and interact with people from different industries. In reality, I think smart working will have a negative impact on workers happiness and productivity. First of all, smart working will negatively impact women as they will use the time gained from a lack of commute to take care of their children or of the household. This is not a biased opinion, multiple research shows that when given the same amount of money, women tend to spend it on their children or on the households while men tend to spend it on themselves. I don’t see why time would be any different from money in this case. While women should not be doing this, it is hard to think it will not happen, thus furthering gender differences in businesses and corporations. On the upside, smart working would benefit those women who cannot enter the labour market because of commitments to their household, however, there are many different options (such as free childcare) which would be of greater help. 

Another category of workers who I think will be negatively impacted by this system are all those people who enter the labour market for the first time. While those who have been working for years, have established professional relations, it would be hard for newcomers to establish professional (or personal) bonds with their colleagues if they only see eachother one day a week at the office and communicate electronically for the rest of the time. It also limits young people’s chances of being introduced to professional who are outside of their company because, as much as we all love linkedin, most relationships, personal or professional, develop in person. This leads me to my final point: human interactions. Most humans feel the need to interact with members of our species (and dogs) in order to maintain a bit of sanity. If I think about any person, of any age, I have the pleasure of knowing, most of their friendships come from groups of people they were forced to interact with. School, university, work, other dog owners at the dog park etc… at a time where work is a much bigger part of people’s lives than it might have been 30 years ago, taking away work buddies seems like a very bad decision…