Germany's 9th largest insurer has seized the opportunity presented by the Covid-19 pandemic to transform what had previously been a relatively traditional plan, aimed at making its working methods and structures more professional, into a smart working revolution. Katja Gerke, who heads the newly created Department for Organizational Development, answered Planet Labor's questions on the changes and outlined the ongoing process.

On 07 January 2022, MGEN (Mutuelle générale de l'Éducation nationale) the mutual health and social security insurance group for those working in the French Ministry of National Education (including Higher Education, Training and Scientific Research & Innovation, Culture and Sport) adopted a new agreement on telework. Signed unanimously by the representative trade unions (UNSA, CFE-CGC, CFDT, and CGT), this text extends teleworking to all the group's entities, including the health centres. It also provides for the possibility of employees working remotely from any location on French territory. Unless the extraordinary teleworking arrangements that are currently in place are further extended, this new agreement will come into force on 01 March 2022.

On 25 January 2022, the Irish bank, which employs roughly 10,000 staff, announced it was opening five additional remote working hubs, bringing the total number of its hybrid offices to 11. Located in small towns or places that make sense for employees in terms of commuting times, these remote working hubs mean employees can avoid travelling to the main offices and they can offer a complementary alternative for teleworking arrangements, a concept particularly backed by the government, which recently created a National Hub Network for start-ups, SMEs, and the self-employed.

On Thursday 16 July, the German multinational unveiled a plan that will see two to three days of remote working become the norm for at least 140,000 of its employees. Developed in the wake of the pandemic, during which remote working has been practiced and experimented on a large scale, the plan has been dubbed the “New Normal Working Model”. It is geared towards promoting employee well-being and the transition from a management centred on “presence” to a results-based approach.

The agreement signed at the end of May by management at the Italian subsidiary of French pharmaceutical group Sanofi and the Filctem-Cgil, Femca-Cisl and Uiltec unions is unique in Italy. It allows employees at the company’s headquarters (excluding scientific representatives and production site staff) to practise so-called ‘smart working’ for up to 5 days a week until 31 December 2020, with equipment provided to facilitate working from home. For the group, these changes are not solely about fostering remote working but rather truly agile working arrangements, with a view to helping carve “the working culture of tomorrow”.

‘The lessons learned from the general implementation of teleworking are helping to accelerate the transformation of the company’s operating methods in favour of greater agility and efficiency for employees’, explained the French automaker in a press release issued on 06 May, announcing the launch of its ambitious ‘New Era for Agility’ project to overhaul the way people work by making telework ‘the benchmark for activities not directly related to production.’