Working from home (WFH) or telework is something that until COVID-19 has been known only as a voluntary and often exceptional practice in the workplace, while remoters were often looked at with skepticism. However, the forced working-from-home experiences have appeared to be better than expected. Coupled with the investments enabling remote working from home during the pandemic, this caused many knowledge workers to rethink the return to the offices, and to favour continuing working from home occasionally, mostly or indefinitely. In response to the growing demand for remote working, companies are experimenting and quickly adjusting their work policies to allow more flexibility. But do we know enough about remote working on such a large scale to make informed decisions?

In this keynote, Prof. Darja Smite will share evidence from Scandinavian companies and discuss the pros and cons of increased remote working. Specifically, the two prominent dilemmas related to remote working will be presented – the Flexibility Paradox and the Individualisation Paradox. The presentation is built on insights from corporate access card data, commit data, calendar data, surveys, work policies, and numerous interviews.

Target Audience: All
Prerequisites: None