Remote work and new employment models in the post Covid-19 era: a case study of Greece

The expansion of teleworking in the workplace raises issues of inequalities and challenges decision makers. The current research is employed to examine the ways in which the COVID-19 pandemic has affected local governments in terms of their functions and basic services to the public. It refers to issues of job destruction in the pandemic, expansion of jobs in the pandemic, transformation of employment via telecommunication and telework & analyses the threat of growing inequality and uncertainty of their impact on labour productivity. As methodological approach, a case study is examined via administration of interviews of employees of the Municipality of Ioannina, Greece, and data are discussed via a qualitative analysis. The results show that introduction of teleworking due to the conditions imposed by the covid-19, is a challenge in the postcovid era. The more widespread use of teleworking will require companies to invest in technological infrastructure, to make extensive changes to the organization of work within their own organization, and all of this will need to be combined with a more general regulatory-institutional framework. The costs of introducing and establishing teleworking will require investment in purchasing, installing equipment and starting up teleworking appears to be considerable, and the return on such an investment should be calculated over the medium term. For this reason, companies should develop a coherent strategy for developing technologies and IT and provide the necessary infrastructure for teleworking.