Telework | Are we more punctual?

“After more than two years working from home, the fashionably late is no longer fashionable”, decrees the New York Timess in an article published earlier this month. Has the pandemic made us more punctual at work? We discuss it with experts.

Catherine Handfield
The Press

Catherine Privé is President and CEO of Alia Conseil, a firm specializing in organizational development. Recently, she facilitated a session with the members of a steering committee. She used to meet them virtually during the pandemic, but this time it was in person.

Coming back from the break, one had hung his feet on the coffee machine, another was talking on the phone outside, yet another had gone somewhere…

“The notion of punctuality is also important in presence, but it seems that we are more delinquent, underlines Catherine Privé. Before starting a meeting, we make jokes, we get annoyed, we share muffins…”

In fact, she summarizes, the virtual evacuates the affective dimension – we concentrate on the task, period. “If I think about what I’ve been through for two years, punctuality was really present”, observes Catherine Privé, who thus echoes the conclusions of the journalist from New York Times.

Punctuality facilitated

The pandemic has created an upheaval in the organization of work, forcing a good part of the population to telework. At the start of 2021, a third of employees were still working from home in Canada, according to a Statistics Canada survey.

Working from home means avoiding traffic congestion and the vagaries of public transport. It also means being less disturbed, therefore more concentrated, and working at your own pace. “It’s easier to be on time when you work remotely, that’s clear,” summarizes Tania Saba, professor at the School of Industrial Relations and holder of the BMO Chair in Diversity and Governance of the University of Montreal.

In 2020 and 2021, Tania Saba studied the efficiency and success factors of teleworking and hybrid working. The researcher did not assess punctuality per se. But punctuality, she says, is linked to job efficiency, commitment and job satisfaction. And all of these have increased with telecommuting.

So yes, she says, telecommuting has likely made punctuality easier. “We were also more present at meetings when they were remote”, notes M^me Saba, who points out that workers also requested less sick leave (“which is not necessarily a good thing”).

Being late for work is part of what is known in human resources as “withdrawal behaviors”, which indicate an employee’s disengagement. Delays are also associated with fatigue and overwork.

But telework does not only have good sides, she insists. When employees work as a team, there is a follow-up that can be lost. It is also – obviously – a source of isolation.

find a balance

The introduction of hybrid work could, in her opinion, make it possible to achieve a precious balance. “And the secret of the hybrid modality, says Tania Saba, is how you organize it. »

In his eyes, hybrid work cannot be reduced to a question of schedule (like two fixed days at the office). According to her, it is necessary to determine the activities that can be done from home and those that are better done at the office, because they involve commitment, networking, training, creativity, etc.

For employees to want to return to the office, they must find meaning in it, also believes Catherine Privé, according to whom managers have a job of organization and planning to do. “I think that if we invite our employees to come to the office at the right time, when it is relevant, they will be motivated… and they will be on time. »

“If they know that their time at work is limited and that it requires an hourly presence, people will certainly not want to break this new balance that they like”, concludes Tania Saba.