Teleworking is spreading everywhere, recognizing no borders

Konstantinos Kouskoukis

Professor of Dermatology – Lawyer –

President of Elliniki

Academy of Spa –

President of the Hellenic Health Tourism Association

 

The continued proliferation of Covid-19 forces more and more companies to adopt the teleworking option, taking advantage of the possibilities offered by technologies as individuals of all ages, if the object of their work allows it, perform their work duties remotely, or exclusively or in rotation, under the spectrum of mental distress.

Teleworking is spreading everywhere, without recognizing borders, but we must limit its uncontrolled application and set operating rules in the new form of employment for hybrid workers. Digital communication has formed a new modus vivendi as the advancement of technology and the arrival of 5G in our country show that everything is possible with distance, avoiding synchronization with colleagues as it functions as a valve of psychological relaxation and decompression.

The future of work is uncertain as a digital bomb has been detonated and while a return to the office is inevitable with Covid-19 overcrowding problems in the closed workplace, teleworking for a large percentage of workers has come to stay. The International Labor Office (ILO) warns that the effects, both on employment and on the health of hybrid workers, will affect social organization in the post-COVID era, with no return.

Digital home employment will be experienced as freedom with relief from the digitally educated and as hell with a burden for those who are digitally uneducated, as in the past the “blue” and “white collars”, while the feeling of introversion and isolation increases daily in human relationships with positive and negative implications.

The positive extensions are the benefit of travel time, reduced or zero travel and appearance costs, increased productivity, better emotional state and greater sense of control motivated by further learning of digital programs and upgrading skills.

Negative extensions are isolation, the burden of physical, mental and emotional health, increased emotional stress, poor connectivity and the presence of people who depend on the care of the employee with and family frictions and tensions.

Teleworking transforms the world of work on the one hand with the man demanding personal benefits working as and where he wants and on the other hand the young, small, medium and large multinational enterprises, to seek to increase productivity, efficiency and flexible work.

The Ministry of Labor, with the application of the digital work card, seeks the arrangement of working time to 4 working days and flexible working hours, but at the request of the employee and the registration of overtime online as “locked” overtime, which the employer must pay or set up a “time bank” and transmit them to the online system “Instrument II”, while the employee will respect the right of electronic disconnection.

The government is also working on providing digital visas based on income and tax incentives to attract digital nomads, ie remote workers, without having to live in a specific location as we experience the 4th industrial revolution in the 21st century, with the omnipotence of the internet. of social media, creating a new virtual society.

Digital platforms have begun to become regulators at the political, social, moral and personal levels, which is why control is needed to ensure a healthy virtual society, through rules that promote openness and

ensure the integrity of the personality while discouraging impunity, minimizing the risks through an institution with a European physiognomy, following a common system of regulatory rules.

This specialized authority, which in addition to drawing up a basic chart of rights and obligations at both the digital platform and the user level, should exercise repressive and preventive control in order to restore the balance within the virtual society, just as is done in real life, in the context of human values ​​compatible with National and European legislation.

I wholeheartedly hope that the unwavering light of the Resurrection illuminates the path of solidarity in the age of social isolation for mental and spiritual upliftment so that we can face the scourge of the pandemic, looking to the future with optimism and hope.

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