2025 Internal Survey Report on
Teleworking and Hybrid Work
USF Working Group
Agora #96
36 - 38
The revealing details of this survey are taken together with the general comments and analyses available in the media to draft a set of recommendations for the future.
2025 Internal Survey Report on
Summary
In early 2025, USF launched an internal online survey to gather insights into ongoing digitalisation efforts across its Member Organisations. The initiative aimed to assess the current state of digital transformation within the USF community and to better understand its impact on both teleworkers and office-based colleagues. The primary objective was to collect a robust set of qualitative and quantitative inputs to support the development of a digitalisation Vade mecum—a collection of practical recommendations and best practices—scheduled for presentation before the summer break of 2025.
The survey was distributed internally among USF Member Organisations and completed on a voluntary and anonymous basis, encouraging open and experience-based feedback. The questionnaire combined structured questions with open-ended responses, allowing participants to report on digital tools, working practices, communication processes, and perceived benefits or challenges associated with digitalisation.
Survey results constitute a key resource for the USF Member Organisation Committee, enabling the identification of both effective approaches and areas requiring further reflection or improvement. Data were analysed using a descriptive approach, with aggregated results highlighting common trends and qualitative responses providing contextual insights and illustrative examples.
While the findings are not intended for external publication or statistical generalisation, they play a central role in strengthening internal communication and supporting informed discussion within the USF community. This report presents an overview of the main responses, trends, and insights emerging from the survey, with the aim of fostering shared understanding and guiding future actions related to digitalisation.
Please find the complete report here as well as its annexe.
Recommendations
by USF Working Group on Teleworking and Hybrid Work
The internal survey developed by the USF working group on digitalisation was launched early 2025 and provided an overview on the situation in the various member organisations. The revealing details of this survey are taken together with the general comments and analyses available in the media to draft a set of recommendations for the future.
Fundamental considerations
The Covid crisis boosted all technical developments allowing telework from home like no other event. The gathered experience opened up an entirely new chapter of work relationships worldwide with a deep impact on everyday life. As soon benefits and dangers appeared clearly and led to a broad discussion throughout the society, both benefits and dangers were identified and sometimes overrated. The challenge that remains is to find a balance, identify the important details and get as many of these details as possible of the work arrangements right. A key question is how deep the involvement of staff representatives will be appropriate.
On the positive side of teleworking:
- As USF committed to more attention for the carbon footprint issue, one first benefit of telework is achieved by reducing the commuting of workers to their workplaces and back.
- Commuting time is mostly lost for workers and generates costs for the employee, which is a further point of consideration.
- Families with small children or responsibility for elderly family members welcome the additional flexibility and saved time.
- Many other employees with lower family constraints welcome the flexibility offered by teleworking achieving a better work-life balance.
- Considering the diversity of personal situations of workers and the advantages enumerated above, it appears unwise to take a dogmatic stance against or in favor of telework.
- Employers take advantage of the reduced need for office space. Objecting to this consequence as such is not easy, as reduced costs through less office rental may also allow for a higher efficiency of the organisation which will be welcomed by users or citizens.
All considerations above apply to international staff organised in USF branches, with some additional aspects to be considered: expatriation may cause additional challenges for workers caring for elderly or children. Telework opportunities, including working from abroad, may be assumed of easing some situations. It appears thus right for USF to focus on the details of telework circumstances and arrangements, avoiding dogmatic positions against (or in favour of) telework.
On the negative side of teleworking:
- The media reported amply on the negative side of teleworking. Isolation is to be named, particularly dangerous for students and young professionals. Poor equipment working at home, leading to various health problems are mentioned.
- The loss of office space mostly comes along with hot-desking, which is mostly unpopular due to its flavour of anonymity in the work environment. Hot desking weakens the bond with the workplace and may also raise issues with ergonomics.
- A further issue is arbitrariness granting or refusing the option of telework, which calls for the examination of two essential questions:
– which tasks are suitable for telework.
– where and how should this question be assessed, and a decision taken (administrative or legal redress).
These two question are inextricably linked to the ability or inability of middle management to trust their employees and linked to acceptable levels of control from a remote place, avoiding excessive micro management.
The issue of the right to disconnect is particularly relevant for teleworkers, as the traditional boundaries of the employer’s premises become blurred. This fluidity can lead managers to request additional work at any time of the day—or night—while, at the same time, the recording and monitoring of working hours may become unclear when teleworking. From the employees’ perspective, the loss of clear boundaries between work and private life is frequently reported, with workers themselves finding it difficult to disconnect. As a result, this situation often leads to excessive working hours, reduced motivation, and an increased risk of fatigue and burnout.
A further important consideration is the great variety of tasks even within one organisation. Blanket agreements to be applied to all workers are therefore difficult to establish, even within one single organisation with an open-minded management. Only the right to disconnect, non-discrimination and similar fundamentals can be identified and kept in agreements. First and foremost, the Agreement on digitalisation of EPSU and the European National Administrations (USF resolution of the 2023 Alicante congress) is to be considered at local level.
A further problem reported upon is the lack of skills of middle management, who more than often fall into the trap of excessively micro-managing teleworkers. Leadership based on trust is not a given. Special training of managers to this effect may be a sound demand of staff representations. These fundamental considerations are well reflected in the USF internal survey and lead, together with the survey results, to the following analysis.
Analysis
Tasks one could consider as comparable or similar do not lead to harmonised practise throughout our organisations. One organisation stands out with two 60 days per year rules, asking for 60 days in office per year and allowing 60 days of telework abroad (in one of the member states). Another organisation allows for a substantial time of teleworking but ask for office presence every other week, which considerably reduces the options available to employees caring for children or elderly family members. Other organisations offer very limited options.
Rationality does not appear to be the guiding principle in the design and implementation of telework systems. Instead, practices often depend largely on the personal—and not necessarily rational— preferences of higher management or supervising body representatives, leading to inconsistent and sometimes random outcomes, especially when staff representatives were insufficiently involved in the decision-making process.
There are obviously several similarities with the practise and constraints known from national public services. However, as expatriate employees of international organisations mostly have old family members in home countries and / or children with special needs, the issue of teleworking in a member state for longer periods can be an essential option when trying to improve work-life balance.
Conclusions
The resolution of the 2023 Alicante Congress resolution contains the essentials of our policy on digitalisation and telework. Addressing the problems experienced and making the best use of the technically available options require first and foremost the deep involvement of local staff representatives who are familiar with the tasks in question.
Indeed, staff representatives are aware of the nature of the tasks involved and are able, more than any other actor in this context to give guidance to management and provide colleagues with support.
This support is two-fold, as the telework options made available to communities must be appropriate to the nature of the tasks performed. Arbitrariness in the granting or rejection of telework requests calls for individual support by staff representatives, as well as for clear conflict-resolution procedures. In organisations where a single employer encompasses multiple task categories, several distinct staff communities may coexist: some may be able to telework extensively, while others may have limited access to telework due to the specific requirements of their tasks.
The focus on the tasks is essential, as even the same employee may well be entrusted with tasks that require office presence while others are perfectly suitable for telework.
The loss of bonds and creativity at the workplace may call for regular meetings of procedures or other compensation measures (campus days, social events etc). The shape, frequency etc of these meetings must be reasonable and adequate; arbitrariness must be ruled out. Again, involvement of the local staff representatives is the right approach to improve the efficiency and fairness of these meetings or other compensation measures.
Health and safety rules and procedures must be extended to the new source of potential problems related to telework. This includes the mandates of the existing committees and their agendas that must be updated to match the new challenges.
Leaving the whole definition of telework options and its application to management alone would be the worst situation for all actors and must be avoided under all circumstances.
Deep involvement of both staff committees and unions is a must, for the current situation and for the future, both in the drafting of internal telework rules and their application in daily life.