Digital upskilling in a telework environment

Analyzing, understanding and determining the influence of the current health crisis on teleworkers’ well-being, motivations and productivity and efficiency of online collaborations that keep firms performant is essential to support the workforce for the current and future economic challenges, and turn them into opportunities. Indeed, in parallel with the current COVID-19 health crisis, the labour market is undergoing profound changes linked to the digital transformation, which will increase in the future (i.e. job replacement, new tasks to require digital skills). An increased use of digital tools at the workplace is not yet real for all organizations. While, for many years, the obstacles to voluntary efforts to switch to a generalized use of digital tools where huge (e.g. lack resources, training, incentive in terms of bonuses) the current lockdown has the power to change the situation. Whereas the use of current communication tools such as emails induces drawbacks for workers (e.g. infobesity), the upskilling to use more efficient collaborative tools (e.g. Microsoft Teams or Slack) will be beneficial for both workers and firms. Finally, if the telework period appears beneficial for both workers and firms, after the lockdown, the challenge will be to create a common framework in the Greater-Region to favor it.