Bloomberg Línea — The Covid-19 pandemic and the ensuing mobility restrictions implemented since March 2020 were a starting point for Latin America to advance in its digitization, just as companies implemented remote work and teleworking as their main employee relations approach.
But trends have changed, and as pandemic restrictions have been lifted, companies are returning to hybrid or fully on-site models at their workplaces, focusing heavily on productivity. In fact, the latest CEO Outlook 2022 South America by KPMG found that 64% of company leaders believe that work will return to being fully presential by 2025.
Quiddity’s latest study, carried out in Argentina, Brazil, Colombia and Mexico, found that three years after the pandemic, “on-site is the predominant work modality” in these countries. Seventy-five percent of those surveyed are already in this modality, while 14% are in hybrid work and only 11% in remote work.
What do Latin Americans prefer?
On a country basis, 81% of the Argentines surveyed are the ones who currently work in face-to-face mode, while Brazil has the highest number of people working in hybrid mode (17%), and Colombia is the country with the highest number of people working remotely (13%).
But it’s not just a business decision, as the survey also found that 59% of respondents prefer in-person work, compared to a 25% preference for hybrid work and 16% for remote.
“Mexicans are the ones who prefer to work on-site (70%), while 33% of Colombians prefer the hybrid model and Brazilians are choosing to work remotely (19%),” explained the company, after applying 3,091 interviews to men and women over 18 years of age.
LatAm workers want a shorter work week
Four out of every 10 workers who responded to the survey said they would prefer to “shorten” the workweek, even if that means “longer working hours or a reduction in salary”.
But the proportion is low, with 60% of respondents saying they “prefer to keep their job as it is”.
On a regional scale, 34% agree that the balance between personal and professional life is one of the benefits of hybrid work, while 38% note a lack of balance between both spheres of life when working from home.
Finally, the study found that Brazilians are the “most dissatisfied” with their work, expressing greater job demands.
