Employee's Interviews

Employees' Interviews

Through numerous interviews with remote employees we were able to express and test different hypotheses.

Assumptions

H1: "Employees feel more fulfillment working as digital nomads. They don’t want to switch back to office work."

H2: "Lack of trust is a barrier to remote work."

H3: “Employees are more efficient when they work remotely”

Test Design

Personal Interviews
12 interviewed Employees

Key Findings

Time difference could be an advantage as there is a progression made during the nights.
Working from abroad or in a different place than the office can be inspiring, remote workers gain in efficiency, productivity and fulfillment.
Due to Covid-19, remote work policies have been strengthened in most companies
The main issues were focused on the electronic materials the workers had to have in order to work correctly from home: big screens, good chairs etc.

Companies put in place several videos, talks and apps to do sport at home as well as podcasts on several topics including tips working from home, mental health…
Depending on the company, working from abroad may not be possible for insurance issues. It might be a law risk regarding the safety of your employee but also the safety of our electronic systems.
Digital nomadism could allow people gaining in mobility and enjoy traveling while working. Going to work may be even easier.
Digital nomadism could increase the living condition of the employee.
The main problem regarding at home working is the hours spent on your computer and the lack of social interaction.

Apart from a nice salary, giving the employees good conditions and the opportunity to live wherever they want is a nice argument.
Trust depends on everyone but most importantly it can be easier to trust someone already with some experience in the company. We can hardly see an employee sending a young graduate directly to Bali after 2-3 months of experience.
Providing many services as a whole package can make a company change their mind to standardize remote work.
From an EU tax perspective, an employee that work from a foreign country for more than 182 days a year is obliged to pay taxes in the country he or she ́s living in.
In general, everyone is working longer from home than in the office.
Lot of stress, as an intern I have no guidelines and cannot integrate the corporation.
Employees work more when working remotely. Former trust issues from employers should also be confirmed or disproved after Covid-19, so I hope this might not be in the way in the future.

Validation

H1 Validated: Employees found remote working fulfilling, especially for those who got the chance to work from a destination such as Lisbon, or the south of France.

H2 Disapproved: Remote work didn't increased the troubles of trust between employees and employers. In the contrary, some employees show more effort and work from home than office. If a trust issue appears while an employee works from home, it's often due to an already existed lack of trust from the manager.

A good way to avoid a lack of trust from the manager would be to work in office in the first years to show how reliable the employee is, and then he/she could be a digital nomad

H3 Validated: Our interviewed employees are all working more efficiently from home when their companies provide them the right conditions to do so.