WLP214 The View from South Europe
We bring you 3 guests today, talking about remote work in Portugal, Italy and Spain, as well as further afield - for a different perspective on changing trends and attitudes, in this global societal shift. Is there a North/South divide (or even an East/West one)?
“What’s Going On” will be back next time, for a wrap-up on everything that has changed in 2019, so that’s going to be a big one! Meanwhile, as Pilar has been in London since 1990 despite her Spanish origins, she’s enjoyed exploring the way work is changing in different countries in different ways - reminding us that remote is a means to an end, and making work - and life - better.
07.57 Felippe Silveira
Felippe is the co-founder and Executive Creative Director at Mowe Studio. He is originally from Brazil, now living in Lisbon, Portugal. His animation studio works remotely with global brands, in a team of 8 including in-house and freelance collaborators.
Felippe Silveira
In Portugal he finds that remote work is more broadly known and accepted than in Brazil, especially in Lisbon with its strong startup culture, and considers that being a small country, collaboration is more intrinsic to success anyway. He usually works at home, but when travelling loves to visit different co-workings, to meet other people and see how they work.
In Brazil and Europe, people still migrate to big cities for work, and there are still big generational gaps in perception of remote work, and work/careers in general - but tech and design companies are leading changes here, and if big companies want to attract and retain millennials they do need to adapt and evolve.
You can keep up with Mowe Studio on Instagram here.
26.20 Giovanni Batista Pozza
Giovanni Batista Pozza
Giovanni has travels between Costa Rica and Italy, while running Be Happy Remotely,
Costa Rica has a strong remote work culture, because moving around and commuting is challenging logistically - as such the digital infrastructure (while lacking much we in Europe take for granted), is stronger and more resilient than the physical one. Co-living spaces are common, an expansion of co-working where flexible accommodation is provided as well as workspace for like-minded digital nomads.
In Italy remote work still predominantly attracts entrepreneurs and freelancers rather than employees, and is still regarded as innovative - people talk about ‘smart working’, embracing everything enabled by technological changes, including flexibility of time and location. Agile working is also gaining currency as a concept.
Policymakers have expressed commitment to improving work-life balance and equal opportunities regardless of location, but there are still few companies which are 100% remote or even taking a remote-first approach, so management styles can be old-fashioned and slow to evolve. Flexibility is a start, and co-workings are growing too, even if typically used for a few days each week instead of primarily. It’s driven by the younger generation, who want remote options and balance.
You can connect with Giovanni on LinkedIn and follow Be Happy Remotely’s community on Facebook.
40.20 Eva Rimbau-Gilabert
It’s a great time to be talking once again to Eva, (who works for the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya remotely from Madrid) to give us an overview of what’s going on in Spain.
Eva Rimbau-Gilabert
Spain remains a late adopter of remote, and the research Eva refers to looks at homeworking, indicating 8% uptake (compared to Northern Europe/Nordics, approaching 30%), and the trend is still around self-employment, not employees. Of course the growth of the knowledge work economy has to drive this, and some causes of the inequality may be structural and hard to change: many traditional industries in Spain (like hospitality) will not be suitable for remote, as well as cultures of presenteeism vs results-orientation. If you replace trust with accountability, you can measure more objectively (see also this article about presenteeism in Spain, just use the translate button if you need to).
Smaller businesses might be expected to show flexibility, but, many sectors have inexperienced managers who can be insecure about leadership at a distance - so remote work adoption still feels sporadic and informal. When remote means one or two days a week, you don’t develop policy and strategy around it, and this is holding things back.
In her own remote work, Eva makes a point of remaining very visible, managing upwards (which we discussed back in Episode 115), and making the most of face-to-face opportunities to drive communication and connection. And she points out that even in colocated work, digital tools and devices are driving expectations about availability and responsiveness, which is triggering a backlash in the public sector about the right to disconnect and log off - however tentatively, in a fragile economy where people feel insecure about work generally.
Eva thinks we need more experiments, like Microsoft Japan’s 4 hour week experiment, to, at least, get the conversation going.
You can connect with Eva to further conversation on LinkedIn and Twitter.
How is work changing in your location, the way you and your community view work and life? What is driving these changes, as we stand poised to enter a new decade of work-life evolution? We’d love to hear from you - please message us via our contact form or on Twitter, to be part of the ongoing conversation.
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