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Many Russian officials do not like the remote format of work – a study by the Center for Purposeful Planning
What’s going on
- According to a study by the Center for Advanced Management Decisions (CMP) Civil Servants at Remote Work: An Analytical Ethnography of Working Practices, civil servants prefer remote office work.
- The concept of work for civil servants is closely connected with the material space and with the presence of colleagues and leaders in a single physical and temporal space.
- Remote work has significantly transformed the daily routine of employees of Russian institutions. Thus, 28% of respondents experienced difficulties in the transition to remote work, while 88% of them lacked the presence of colleagues, and 16% found it difficult to get used to the new programs necessary to maintain their work activities.
- The remote format of work has led to a violation of the traditional communication format for the civil service – often personal communication is necessary for prompt resolution of issues, as well as the approval of documents. Despite the introduction of electronic document management, not everyone was able to adapt to it.
- In addition, 44% of respondents said that their communication with the manager in a remote format has become less effective.
- As part of the document flow, the transfer of the practices of working with secret documentation to a remote mode caused the greatest difficulty: most civil servants assess the online environment as “unsafe”.
- The study was conducted on the basis of data collected through observations, interviews and focus groups with civil servants of the central offices of five federal authorities. The collection of material began even before the coronavirus pandemic and took place from June 2019 to September 2021 inclusive.
What does it mean
The pandemic has significantly changed the structure of work of both public services and businesses: since 2020, most employees have switched to a remote work format. Such a transformation required a rethinking of the usual work practices, as well as large-scale digitalization of the workspace. A survey by the Rabota.ru portal showed that most of our countries prefer remote work and are even ready to change their profession in order to work from home, but civil service employees do not share such enthusiasm.
It is worth noting that this trend is observed not only in our country – according to a study by the elEconomista portal, Spanish officials are critical of the transition to remote work, while the majority of the country’s population supports remote and hybrid work formats. There are also examples of an effective transition of the civil service to remote work – for example, Canadian officials prefer to work from home.
According to experts, the transition to a hybrid work format will become one of the trends in the European labor market in 2022. Companies that are not prepared to provide flexibility to employees are expected to lose a large number of talented and skilled workers. It can be assumed that civil service employees will not be affected by this trend, and they will gladly return to their usual offices.