It has been shown that the volume of newly concluded deals is significantly lower when deals are arranged online. – In the private sector of Serbia, 18 to 22 percent of employees work in this way
While in the world the interest of employers in remote labor engagement is decreasing, as evidenced by the latest analysis of the “Linkedin” platform, according to which the number of advertisements for this form of work engagement is decreasing, in Serbia such cooperation is still among the favorite benefits of employees, especially among IT experts. Every third ad from the IT sector refers to this type of work, according to data from the largest employment site helloworld.rs. Can the current energy crisis, as well as the diminishing importance of the pandemic on the labor market, influence local employers to become less interested in hiring remote workers?
Dragoljub Rajić, from the Business Support Network, reminds that in the private sector of Serbia, 18 to 22 percent of employees work online, but it also happens more often that IT companies insist that employees come to work.
– This trend in the world has been observed at meetings with managers, because employees have an increasing need to see each other in person, in order to conclude some important business. In fact, it has been shown that the volume of new deals closed is significantly lower when they are negotiated online. Especially with new companies that have just started working. Physical contact leaves more room for better business deals than when there is online communication – says Rajić. He reminds that socialization is also important for business, which is why there is this trend of returning to corporations.
– Although, small and medium enterprises in Serbia notice that their sales decrease if they work online, that their development also stagnates, because there is no exchange of opinions and acquaintance with new clients. Except in the IT sector, in Serbia there is online work in the part of administrative and financial affairs, but also in all those systems that are based on electronic platforms that can be accessed from the outside. This is how it can be done in a good part of the jobs related to the organization of transport and traffic, logistics and marketing, preparation in publishing, he enumerates.
However, just when the pandemic subsided and citizens returned to the office en masse, some countries, Greece among them, began to consider the return of remote work in order to save energy in companies. Can it also affect our economy?
– Everything depends from country to country, how to solve that problem. In the end, it will all come down to a recommendation, unless governments make a general proposal to companies. However, if there is a need for physical interaction, companies will continue to nurture live work even in such conditions, regardless of the crisis. Because, keep in mind that everything depends on the level of development of the economy. Those economies that are based on intellectual work and services, where less direct daily physical work is performed, will have a higher percentage of workers in the online sphere – explains Rajić. He adds that this cannot be true for Serbia, because the majority of our employees have to come to work to work, because we are talking about sellers, warehouse workers, transporters of goods, workers on machines in factories…
Research shows that in the private sector of Serbia, 18 to 22 percent of employees do their work online, and that’s only in larger cities, because in cities in the interior it’s almost non-existent, maybe only five percent do business that way. However, if the research included the public sector, where there is also online work, but it is not talked about as much, the percentage of employees who work from home would be less than 18 percent, Politika writes.
