What we can learn from birdsong: Mainstreaming teleworking in a post-pandemic world

Abstract

Many urban areas suffer from poor air quality as a consequence of high levels of car-based traffic. Even cities with well-developed multi-modal public transport networks and favourable conditions for alternative transportation, such as Barcelona, experience problems with air pollution. The restrictions imposed on movement in response to the COVID-19 pandemic offer insights into the collective social benefits of reduced traffic. This situation also provided much-needed evidence about teleworking that will indicate whether it could become a mainstream and institutionalised practice in certain professions. In Barcelona, the experience of a less polluted, quieter and more liveable city has inspired both the municipal government and the citizens to rethink the use of public spaces and look for ways to reduce car dependency. We argue that this unprecedented crisis is an opportunity to create a more sustainable future of work and mobility in cities in the post-pandemic world.

The Influence of Work–Family Conflict on Burnout during the COVID-19 Pandemic: The Effect of Teleworking Overload

“…Telework is a polysemic term on which there is abundant literature [ 79 , 80 , 81 , 82 ]. It has evolved since its initial use by Nilles [ 83 ] in the 1970s, with the practice of working at home to avoid gasoline consumption in the United States due to the oil crisis of those years [ 83 , 84 ].…”

Teleworking from a Near-Home Shared Office in Mexico City -A Discrete Choice Experiment on Office Workers

“…CDMX's residents quickly embraced teleworking to face COVID-19's lockdown; and more recently, as the city tries to return from the lockdown, biking to work is becoming a popular commuting alternative. Policies pursuing improvement in resilience of a city will increase and enhance biking networks, 14 discourage the use of private cars, and encourage the use of public transportation (Bojovic et al, 2020).…”

“…Leaving COVID-19 conditions aside, teleworking from home has not spread as much as expected despite being a technically feasible option since at least a couple of decades in Europe and USA. In practice, a number of reasons have made teleworking from home an arrangement to which most office workers have not realistically had access to -either due to conditions related to employees characteristics, or due to employers' unwillingness to shift managerial practices, or both (Aguilera et al, 2016;Bojovic et al, 2020;Chang, 2019;López-Igual & Rodríguez-Modroño, 2020;Zhang et al, 2020). In addition, teleworking from home conveys risks such as emotional isolation, and loss in productivity (ILO, 2020).…”

“…From a big-picture point of view, this paper initiates a conversation about the possibility that a system of shared offices located within a reasonable distance from workers' homes may represent an alternative for megacities to not only tackle congestion in peak hours and associated air pollution but to increase resilience in a post-COVID-19 world. Practitioners and policy makers in megacities may find this conversation of interest as these cities encompass sectors and regions with large potential benefits from teleworking -particularly, those located in emerging economies (Ansong & Boateng, 2018;Bojovic et al, 2020).…”

Economic Benefits of Remote Work from the Employer Perspective

“…Besides, companies have recently begun to view remote work as an opportunity to attract and retain top-level employees in business fields having a shortage of employees (Steil A. V., Barcia R. M., 2000). This topic has become especially relevant in the world today because due to the spread of COVID-19, most of the companies work remotely (Bojovic D. et al, 2020;Kawashima T. et al, 2020).…”