What are the challenges of telecommuting in Panama?

Building a corporate culture or sense of belonging is the top concern of Panamanian executives regarding telecommuting, according to a study by Page Executive.

This question appears as the main concern of respondents with 63%, while other points also stand out, such as flexibility, without losing control (52%) and maintaining productivity (48%).

The covid-19 pandemic has promoted telecommuting, a scheme that presents challenges for organizational leaders.

“To create a strong business culture and a strong connection between people, the existence of trust through a very close team relationship is essential. Personal presence is a factor that accelerates integration and relationships between people. In an exclusively virtual environment, there are many obstacles to an effective relationship. For this reason, the vast majority the organization prefers a hybrid environment, so the personal touch is not lost,” said Carolina Marques, Page Executive Director.

The situation is similar in countries like Costa Rica and Colombia, where building an organizational culture or sense of belonging is also the biggest challenge. In Mexico, however, they point out that maintaining productivity is almost as challenging.

Considering that remote work has now become a common aspect of working life, it is important to know which skills are most relevant to leading remote teams.

According to the respondents’ perception, communication and active listening have more weight (with 80.6% of responses). It is followed by focus on results (57.9%) and planning and time management (55.9%).

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twenty percent

of employees in Panama works remotely, according to a study by Page Executive.

63%

Among the surveyed Panamanian executives, they consider creating a business culture to be the biggest challenge.

Telecommuting requires a range of skills beyond those traditionally considered outstanding in the labor market, such as negotiation skills, sociability and creativity.

Communication skills, social and emotional intelligence, flexibility, the ability to solve complex problems, collaborate and manage teams, among others, become essential as workplaces become more diverse.

“These soft skills are the ones that have been put under the microscope in the pandemic, so soft skills have started to be called deep skills, because they are harder to teach and adopt, it takes more work to learn, it is more complicated to measure and more expensive to automate with technology over other skills,” Marques added.

According to the Page Executive study, the benefit of working from anywhere (remote work) is only an exclusive condition for 16.3% of participants, while for 71.2% it is relevant, but not necessary.

In Panama, about 20% of employees work entirely in the home office. In other words, face-to-face or hybrid models are more valued. In Central America, the number of registry offices is 45%.