14,276 people do teleworking in Ecuador

Since August 2016, when the Ministry of Labor (MDT) issued the ministerial agreement that regulates teleworking in the country, 14,276 people agreed to this type of employment .

14,276 people do teleworking in Ecuador

The public sector incorporated teleworkers since May 18, 2017, when the 090A Ministerial Agreement was signed. The document states that both the employee and the company must sign an instrument describing tasks, objectives, indicators and goals to be accomplished. In addition to stipulating the period in which the employee performs work from home.

The public institution that incorporates more people to telework is the National Telecommunications Corporation (CNT), with 200 employees. She is followed by the Banco del Pacífico , with 68 employees. The MDT is 35 and Petroamazonas has 19.

Xavier Vallejo is a teleworker at CNT since 2018. His activities focus on the corporate training area. “Your job is where you have the information and where you have telecommunications available,” he said.

When working at the CNT facilities , Vallejo had to travel an hour and a half until he reached his office on two routes: round trip. “Three hours of my life I lost them a day,” he said.

For him productivity is salvageable as the factor that prevails in teleworking. This is what Verónica Mosquera , negotiation analyst for Interconnection Management, agreed for four years at CNT and three months working from home.

He explained that through teleworking he achieves greater concentration because, mainly, he works without interruptions. But he also emphasized the value of providing quality time to your home. “Having family lunch changes the heart and mind. And when your mind changes, your work changes, ”he said.

When an employee enters telecommuting, CNT delivers a VPN modem so that it can connect to a computer. It also provides internet so that it is connected all the time and on your machine it has the software tools.

To be considered as candidates for teleworking , CNT employees had to go through a selection process , have a good performance for a full year and have fulfilled the objectives entrusted in the offices. But for Vallejo, discipline plays a fundamental role.

The new modality is a way to optimize the resources of the institution, explained the manager of CNT, Martha Moncayo. “We alone in Quito were in six buildings; (with telecommuting ) we moved to four. There we have a contraction that means significant money savings, ”he said.

Bank Teleworking

In Banco del Pacífico, the modality arrived in August 2019. Today they have 68 of their employees nationwide working from home between one and three days a week. The remaining time must be spent in the bank offices .

“A bank that constantly seeks to anticipate the needs of its customers cannot ignore the reality of its employees, thanks to different tools available, so that they can fulfill their responsibility without being in the office,” said Efraín Vieira , president of the entity .

Under the ministerial agreement, public institutions can incorporate 20% of their officials in the teleworking modality. This practice is increasingly common in the private sector , which takes the largest number of teleworkers.

According to the MDT , 98% of teleworkers work in private institutions. In total there are 13,972.

The 2016 ministerial agreement set the rules and regulations for telecommuting in private companies. One of the institutions to incorporate this modality is Roche . The multinational launched telecommuting in August 2019. Of its 200 employees on the payroll, 143 work from home. That is, almost 72% are teleworkers.

This system is not mandatory but the employee chooses the days a week he wishes to perform teleworking, said María Pía Orihuela, general manager of Roche Ecuador.

“We want our employees to feel good working with us. We believe that we will achieve our purposes through the human talent we work with. We value that the potential of people is in them and not in the physical space where they feel, ”said Orihuela.

One of her workers is Ana Cevallos , company communicator. For her, teleworking reduces travel times, allowing her to be more productive. “Being in a remote place you focus 100%,” he added.

Andrés Madero, Minister of Labor , said that when the work of the current government began , telecommuting reached almost 5,000 people. Today it already reaches 15,000 nationwide.

About 200 companies from the private sector and 10 public institutions joined the telework . Within the planned labor reforms , more companies will also be encouraged to adopt this modality.

https://www.eltelegrafo.com.ec/noticias/economia/4/teletrabajo-ecuador