Flexibility, equal opportunities and sustainability are the three opportunities that the pandemic has opened up in the future of work, as Mireia Las Heras, professor at IESE Business School, explained at the workshop entitled "The telework of the future". In the meeting, organised by the high school business and Humanism of the University of Navarra, also intervened executives from Repsol, Fundae, Outvise and the Executive Master in Human Resources and Digitalisation of the academic centre.

"Telework is an opportunity to hire people, not for who they are, but for how they perform. It is an opportunity to hire more women," said Las Heras. Likewise, the spaces at work will have to adapt to the new needs: "The days we go to the office are for generating relationships, immersing ourselves in the culture and co-creating", said the academic who has developed a study on telework during the months of the pandemic at IESE's International Centre of work and Family.   

For her part, Antonia Casado, Director of Human Resources and Organisation at Fundae, stressed the importance of the training of employees in technological tools: "The transversal training is core topic. In public sector companies there is no experience in teleworking, as there is a great hierarchical dependence", she pointed out.

This change must be gradual and requires a change of mentality, as Pilar Rojas, senior leader at Repsol, recalled: "Telework is not a right, but responds to the nature of work". Thus, according to Rojas, the business must have a proposal of value for each subject of employee; and the solution is based on self-management.

Flexibility to retain talent

However, it is not a new reality, as many companies were already practising it, as is the case of Eusebi Llensa, CEO of the technology company Outvise. Llensa highlighted the remote work as a competitive advantage for attracting talent: "If we don't offer candidates flexibility , we will lose a lot of talent. Moreover, teleworking broadens my range of possibilities as employer. If I need someone who speaks German, I can hire someone directly from Germany.

In the roundtable, moderated by Javier Arellano, director academic of the Master in Human Resources and Digitalisation of the University of Navarra, the speakers agreed that in addition to a transformation of mentality, a new style of management must be adopted. "Measuring objectives is easy in transactional jobs, but in creative jobs, measuring productivity is more difficult," stressed Llensa, who clarified that productivity must include creativity, the proposal of value and the contribution of each employee. "Otherwise we are going to reach digital presentialism", stressed Rojas, who also contributed the following ingredients core topic for this new model of management: autonomy, trust and responsibility. "We will have to think of different ways of measuring employee performance", Las Heras recalled, proposing an orderly transition that encourages autonomy staff.