*The interviewees in this article agreed to speak with the UOL on condition of anonymity, for fear of possible reprisals from their former companies
In December 2021, import and export analyst Rodrigo*, 28, resigned from the oil multinational where he had worked for 10 years for being opposed to returning to face-to-face work amid the covid-19 pandemic. He would have to leave the city of São Paulo, where he had settled since the beginning of the health crisis, to go by bus to Macaé (RJ) at least twice a week.
In addition to spending about 10 hours on the road just to go, Rodrigo made the decision because he believes he can be more productive at home. According to him, the company required him to return to the office for two reasons: the costs of maintaining the building and the chemistry of the team.
As he disagreed with the guidelines, he preferred to give up benefits such as FGTS (Fundo de Garantia de Tempo de Serviço) and unemployment insurance and resigned. None of his superiors came up with a proposal to keep him on the team after a decade of service, he says.
“There is a concern with my health, of course, is the first point. There is no need to expose myself because what I do can be done at home”, he says. The analyst was responsible for preparing the company’s import and export activities and dealt daily with a series of documents in front of the computer.
Immediately after leaving, Rodrigo got a new job in the area, now in São Paulo. The scheme is a hybrid, with a trip to the company’s headquarters twice a week, but he has already expressed to his superiors his willingness to work from home 100% of the time.
“In the home office, in addition to the lower cost advantage [com transporte e alimentação], I get more comfortable. I can sleep later, I don’t get stressed out in traffic and I have more time for myself,” she says.
Work ‘watched’ from afar
Although it is a reality for few Brazilians, the pandemic has forced a new way of working for many who have adapted to a new reality at home. At the end of March, the government published an MP (Provisional Measure) that allows companies to adopt hybrid work.
According to an Ipsos survey, 31% of Brazilians prefer to work longer or completely in the home office model in the post-pandemic period.
This is the case of the architect Alessandra*, 29, who felt uncomfortable with returning to face-to-face work at an architecture office in Vila Madalena, west of São Paulo.
After spending 15 days on leave for having contracted covid, she says she saw her boss without wearing a mask at a time when she had not yet been vaccinated with both doses. She was hired at the end of August 2021 and left in January of this year.
Even when she was able to work from home, she felt uncomfortable because the company told her to install a home office management system on her personal computer.
Hired as a PJ, that is, without an employment relationship, Alessandra says that the software monitored her activities at all times and requested justifications even when she got up to go to the bathroom.
According to her, the last straw was in January, when face-to-face work became mandatory three times a week. At that time, cases of the omicron variant spread, which dominated the positive diagnoses of covid at the beginning of the year – and even delayed going to the office because employees had been infected at the turn of 2022.
Since then, Alessandra has been developing architectural projects on her own — in her office in her bedroom. “The home office for me is already a reality, I no longer see a reason to leave the house to work.”
Hybrid model brings balance, says professor
For the researcher at Gefam (Brazilian Society for the Economy of the Family and Gender), Regina Madalozzo, employers and employees are adapting to these new issues. However, the fear of unemployment, which today affects 12 million people in Brazil, can make workers accept face-to-face jobs even against their will.
“It’s nice to imagine that employees will be able to negotiate with the boss to work from home and live in the countryside, but the reality presents itself in a different way”, he says. “If the country’s economic conditions are not favorable, workers will not have the power to make agreements”, he adds.
Senior professor at FEA-USP (Faculty of Economics, Administration and Accounting at the University of São Paulo) Hélio Zylberstajn says that the hybrid model is a trend for the post-pandemic period.
Occupations in the fields of technology, communication and administration benefit from being able to go to the company at least once a week and work from home most of the time.
Zylberstajn says the balance between home and office tends to be more productive for both parties. “People are dissatisfied with the time to get to work, and doing everything from home brings greater flexibility in the routine. On the other hand, being with colleagues is a nice thing because of the conviviality”, she declares.
The USP professor’s speech is in line with a recent study published by the Harvard Business School that understands hybrid work as an ideal model.
The researchers organized three groups of 108 employees over nine weeks — the first went to the office between zero and eight days; the second between nine and 14 days; and the third group went from 14 to 23 days.
According to them, the group that spent less time within the company managed to be more productive. “Intermediate hybrid work is plausibly the sweet spot. Workers enjoy flexibility and yet are not as isolated compared to colleagues who work predominantly from home,” he says.
Also according to Zylberstajn, areas with high employee turnover motivate layoffs in this return to face-to-face activities.
No negotiation, left the resignation
It was the lack of agreement with the management that made graphic designer Andrei*, 25, resign from a publishing company after six years. The company where he worked handed over the keys to its headquarters, in the Saúde region, south of São Paulo, at the beginning of the pandemic and reopened at a new address in Consolação, downtown, earlier this year.
Although without an employment relationship, he tried to negotiate in the first days of March his stay at home office to be able to reconcile the two jobs he had since before the pandemic. However, it didn’t work out.
For him, the termination meant a loss of income at the end of the month, but it proved to be a hit. Andrei says that, when he went to the company’s new building to return the equipment, he noticed that no health protocol was followed among his colleagues — such as the space between tables and the use of a mask. The mask ceased to be mandatory in the state of São Paulo on March 17.
Andrei reinforces the idea that he can perform his tasks more efficiently away from a stall with people around. Still, the graphic designer would not rule out an offer for face-to-face work. “I don’t see a problem, as long as there are some advantages. A higher salary, flexibility and benefits like food.”
* The real names of the interviewees have been changed
