According to the Ministry of Labor and Technology, teleworking has grown in Colombia 4 times from 2012 to 2018

Teleworking is a trend that runs not only national companies, but virtually all organizations worldwide. Working from home is now a popular reality, particularly in Colombia.

Leer en español: El teletrabajo cambia la cara del mercado laboral en Colombia

Changing space, not being tied to a fixed job, and improving working conditions are some of the aspects that have motivated companies to adopt this new method.

According to the Fourth Study of Penetration of Teleworking in Colombian Companies 2018 , the indices suggest that this new modality may be applicable in different business environments, which broadens the outlook for workers and organizations.

Bogota is located as the city with the largest number of teleworkers, followed by Medellin and Cali, which shows that it is the large cities with a high accumulation of organizations that most adopt these measures.

The study also provides data that can be analyzed beyond growth in numbers, such as

• The areas that most lend themselves to teleworking
• The areas that make the decision to implement this initiative
• The sector where this modality is most applicable

It can quickly be seen that it is the mid-level workers, who do not necessarily have to be in direct contact with production machinery or with management decision-making, who most benefit from teleworking.

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Likewise, the motivation to implement this new modality is given by the management itself, instead of being an initiative of the employees themselves.

Why Teleworking?

Teleworking is an initiative that has been promoted by the Ministry of Labor in partnership with the Ministry of Information Technology and Communications (MinTIC) through a " pact " to which numerous companies have been added in the country.

Its objective is to "increase productivity in organizations, generate sustainable mobility, promote organizational innovation, improve the quality of life of workers and promote the effective use of information technology and communications in the productive sector."

The organizations have affirmed that Teleworking supposes an improvement in different aspects, so much for the business production as for the same employee.

By eliminating displacement and the fixed job, companies expect results without necessarily applying constant vigilance to their employees or forcing them to reduce much of their time to carry out their tasks.

The aforementioned study mentions aspects derived from this situation such as:

• Improvement in the work environment
• More motivated employees
• Productivity increase

Not everything is rosy

However, the outlook is not fully positive. According to data from the World Health Organization (WHO), for 2020, depression "will have become the second leading cause of disability worldwide", a characteristic that is linked to factors that associate teleworkers with their new modality: isolation and loneliness, due to the lack of interaction with other workers.

Because of this, telework should be considered as an alternative, but all its facets should be taken IGNORE INTO account. Thus, teleworking can become an instrument to "change the environment", since it can be established partially, instead of isolating workers definitively.

Similarly, the applicability of teleworking in each particular case and the benefits it may have must be evaluated, both for the company and for the worker. There is no doubt that this new form of work is increasingly on the rise.

LatinAmerican Post | Jorge Ovalle
Translated from “El teletrabajo cambia la cara del mercado laboral en Colombia”