If telework became commonplace during the Covid-19 pandemic, it remains much less rooted in France than in other major industrialized countries. A study by the German economic institute Ifo and Econpol Europe, relayed by Les Échos this Thursday, shows that the French telework on average 0.6 days per week, against 0.9 days in the 34 countries studied.
France is thus at the back of the world pack, since only three countries do less well than it: Greece (0.5), Japan (0.5) and South Korea (0.4). At the other end of the ranking, workers in Canada, the United Kingdom, the United States and Australia telecommute about a day and a half a week on average. The culture of teleworking seems to be particularly established in Anglo-Saxon countries: in Europe, the average number of teleworked days amounts to 0.8 per week, compared to 0.7 in the Asian countries studied, to 0.9 in America Latin America and South Africa, and 1.4 in Anglo-Saxon countries.
“The possibility of working from home is visibly appreciated, notes in a press release Mathias Dolls, deputy director of the Ifo Center for Surveys and Research in Macroeconomics. However, we note a gap between the number of telework days desired by employees and the quota provided by employers. In France, for example, employees would like to work from home on average 1.4 days a week. But there again, proof that the face-to-face culture is still omnipresent in France, the French are at the bottom of the ranking. Only Danes, Norwegians, Japanese and South Koreans would like less or as much teleworking. A day and a half a week is, for example, one day less than in Anglo-Saxon and Latin American countries or even in Turkey, South Africa or Singapore.
French employers, in any case, remain wary of teleworking. According to this study, carried out between April and May 2023 among 42,000 workers – including 2,500 in France -, they are only ready to offer their employees 0.72 days of telework per week on average, or 0.7 days less than this. what the workers want. Globally, the gap is 0.9 days on average, with employees claiming 2 days per week on average compared to 1.1 expected by their employers. It is in the Anglo-Saxon countries that expectations and realities are closest (0.7 day difference on average), and in Latin America and South Africa that they are furthest apart (1.3 gap day).
The study also looks at the advantages of telework pointed out by employees. The most cited being, unsurprisingly, the time saved due to the absence of commuting (60%), ahead of savings on fuel and meal costs (44%) and flexible working hours (42%). Opposite, socializing with colleagues (62%), the best team working conditions (54%) and the clear separation between professional and private life (43%) are perceived as the three main advantages of face-to-face work.
