It is often said that something bad is good. It is true of pandemic misfortune, which left us the telework in inheritance.
Almost overnight, working methods have been adapted and new tools have emerged, which has given productivity in several activity sectors and in several countries. Not everywhere, because this heritage is very unevenly distributed in the world.
A recent survey of Stanford University on a global scale indicates without surprise that it is in North America, the United Kingdom and Australia that telework is the most widespread. It is in Asia that he is the least.
Globally, the time spent in teleworking has decreased, also notes the survey. It went from an average of 1.6 days in 2022 to 1.33 days in 2023 and to 1.27 days since 2024 in a sample of 22 countries where it is the most used.
Despite this decline, teleworking is there for good. It is a new reality that does not do everyone’s business.
Talk to the checkout, whose yield suffers from the desertion of office buildings that weigh heavily in its wallet 1. Canada and the United States are the two countries of the Economic Cooperation and Development Organization (OECD) where there are the most teleworking, underlined its president, Charles Emond, last week.
It’s easy to understand, he said. When you have large spaces and can be avoided very long to go to the office, the telework is attractive.
Conversely, in Europe, where electricity is expensive, employees choose more to go to the office because it is more economical for them. In many Asian countries, the question of going or not to the office does not even arise.
Unjust among countries, the inheritance of the pandemic is unfair among workers. Even in the economies where teleworking is the most widespread, several professions and professions do not have access to it, such as employees of the health sector, teachers, those who work in restaurants and other service establishments.
For those who have access to telework, the advantages are undeniable. The easier work-family reconciliation or the possibility of dip in the pool or to make a lavery brewing between two files can be more attractive than interrelations with colleagues or promotions that (perhaps) would escape them. Not to mention the savings on transport, clothing, meals.
Also, in most major North American cities, the occupancy rate for office buildings has not returned to the preparational level.
The firm placed.AI measured the entrances to the office buildings of the major American centers between January 2020 and June 2025. She notes that traffic returned to Normal in New York, but that it is still quiet in downtown Chicago or Houston.
In downtown Montreal, the rate of vacuums of office buildings reached a record level at the start of the year 2.
The situation seems to stabilize, in Montreal as elsewhere, but the backtrack is no longer possible.
Business profits and productivity do not seem to suffer from teleworking, but many of them still want to reduce it or even eliminate it.
The banks, for example, began to gradually bring their employees back to the fold.
Companies like Starbucks, Google and Amazon have done so too.
The Ontario government has just announced that all public service employees will have to be present five days out of five next January.
Highlights are expected, but with the scarcity of the workforce and the growing number of activities that can be done at a distance, we can bet that the inheritance of the pandemic will not disappear.
1. Read “Brand semi -annual assessment: complicated, real estate”
2. Read “Office real estate: the vacation rate reaches a record in downtown Montreal”
