María works in a private media outlet and has been telecommuting since March 17, 2020, after the state of emergency and confinement were announced after the first outbreaks of COVID-19 were detected in Ecuador. He says that at the beginning it was difficult to adapt due to complications with the internet service in his home to be able to work, since the company does not recognize any type of support to cover these expenses so far.
With the passing of the months, María was adapting and even adapted a space in her room on her own to be more comfortable, although her day was reduced to six hours, as was her remuneration.. His employer has informed him that this will continue until approximately August, once the contract they made with the humanitarian law ends.
When the pandemic began, in 2020, 443,710 workers registered under this modality, which by 2021 was significantly reduced and closed the year with 30,920 teleworkers, according to figures from the Ministry of Labor, an entity that was asked for more updated figures, but did not share them. These data mean that 93% of the staff is already in the office.
In total, in these two years, within the Single Work System (SUT), there are 13,003 private sector companies and 262 public institutions that registered collaborators in this modality.
Liz Monserrate, a worker at a higher education institution in the country, has also been teleworking for two years, but her situation is different from that of María.
His institution, in which some 800 people work, has tried to make pilot plans for the progressive return to face-to-face attendance, but the different outbreaks of infections have made them choose to rule out that option for personnel in certain areas.
Liz, who is part of a work team of 20 people, indicates that the modality has been somewhat bearable for him thanks to his direct superiors, and that telecommuting has allowed him to unite his work, professional and personal life in the same place, which he considers very valuable. For this reason, he now finds it difficult to think of going back to full attendance, and says that a hybrid day would be something a little more ideal, given the current pace of life for workers.
Issuing a daily hourly report to the human talent area is what Liz must do every day as a control measure that the institution has defined, that since the beginning of the new modality has provided him with equipment for the development of his work.
The situation is similar for Karen Cevallos, part of the Rodríguez Baudoin strategic communication agency. For two years, the entire company payroll has been telecommuting and they do not plan to returnmainly as a security measure, but also because this has led to significant cost reductions, savings that have been reinvested in other areas.
The company in which Karen works, which since before the pandemic already allowed its collaborators to choose to work from home on specific occasions, complies with what a worker in this modality must receive: covers part of the value of the internet of each worker and has provided electronic equipment and necessary stationery constantly in these years.
Karen, who has not suffered contract or salary changes, mentions that, despite the great change that going completely virtual meant, the quality of work has not diminished; rather, he considers that he has improvedsince the entire team holds weekly meetings via Zoom and once a month, as an integration, they hold a breakfast with the team to see how they are doing personally and at work.
Labor lawyer Vannessa Velásquez reports that in Ecuador it is necessary to understand the difference between what was the emerging telework and the use of the figure of teleworkof which there was no culture in the country until the pandemic occurred.
It mentions that for certain workers it has been advantageous; while for others, an abuse, which entails fear of denouncing what happens. The absence of labor inspections for this modality stands out and also the cases of companies that may be in virtuality and have not reported it so as not to assume certain items and processes.
the labor lawyer Francisco Zambrano mentions that, although teleworking helped safeguard jobs in the most critical moments of the pandemic, There is still no optimal system or strong policies in the country to develop or regulate itsomething that other countries do have and that is very necessary.
He comments that in these two years he has known of cases of Complaints of workers who are not respecting the disconnection, despite being stipulated in a ministerial agreement; who work more than what is established and these overtime hours are not canceled.
“Taking this into consideration, workers can rely on the control body to enforce what is established. The worker is in an unprotected situation (…). In order not to lose his job, he has to let this go and continue with his work, although this harms them”, he indicates.
On the other hand, Velázquez says that at this time “many companies made significant investments, such as analyzing the ergonomics of the workplace, training to avoid accidents at home, and that all this investment has been affected by the provisions to return to face-to-face” issued by the Ministry of Labor, which is added to the norms of the Committee of Emergency Operations at different times. Instead they should have been “parameters of how telework can continue to be used and in which activities it works completely well”.
The expert stresses that it is important to take into account, through the constant mandatory surveys that a company must carry out to measure psychosocial risks, the decision of workers who choose to stay in telework or maintain a hybrid shift, since they would be “validating the needs of the employer and those of the worker”but that Ecuador lacks a technical standard. (I)
Comptroller evaluated eleven public entities
The Comptroller General of the State (CGE) In the last months of 2021, the special examinations of eleven institutions were concluded to verify the controls that they carried out on teleworking days. during the first year of the pandemic.
The control body examined the Ministry of Labor, the Ministry of Education and Culture, the Pichincha regional branch of the National Secretariat for Higher Education, Science and Technology (Senescyt), the Higher Education Council (CES) and the House of Ecuadorian Culture, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Human Mobility, the Ministry of Economy and Finance, the Internal Revenue Service (SRI), the Superintendence of Banks and the Municipality of Rumiñahui.
He determined in his reports that there were serious failures in these public institutions in the control of teleworking days developed during the toughest months of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, such as the absence of workers’ payroll shipments in this modality, the non-establishment of deadlines for the delivery of server activity reports, the lack of updating attendance records, among others that make it impossible to verify that, effectively, their servers have worked. (I)
Source: Eluniverso
Paul is a talented author and journalist with a passion for entertainment and general news. He currently works as a writer at the 247 News Agency, where he has established herself as a respected voice in the industry.
