Is Telework Really Feasible in Israel?

In 2013, Yahoo! CEO announced that the company will no longer be allowing telework, reasoning that exchange of ideas occurs in informal conversations just as much as formal ones. In 2017, IBM too announced the termination of telework, despite the fact that their remote employees exhibited greater work satisfaction. Then came Covid-19, forcing companies around the world to institute telework with zero time to plan or prepare. According to OECD data from 2020, telework may very well become a staple of the work environment; it has many advantages, including saved commuting costs, enhanced productivity, and increased employee satisfaction. At the same time, it poses several considerable challenges to management, technology, and social interaction. This paper wishes to examine which roles and employees can adopt this type of work scheme, which requires specific personality and behavioral traits. Building on Madhala and Bental (The ability to work from home among workers in Israel, 2020), we sampled employees telework-facilitating fields. 72% of the respondents expressed their desire to work from home and believe this method will have a positive effect on their quality of life. We also learned that women, parents of children under the age of 6, and persons aged 56–65 are more capable of working from home. Desire and ability to telework were also found to be affected by level of education and duration of commute. These findings point to the potential benefits of telework for reducing traffic. We also found that salaried employees display better telework adaptivity than self-employed. The same balance holds true for private vs. public sector employees.