After coworking and remote working, a new trend is emerging on the labor market. Microworking, or maximizing your working time and ensuring you are profitable during “down time”, when you get bored in a train station or an airport for instance.
Julien Foussard introduces the benefits of this new practice and explains how to perform.
Julien Foussard explains the benefits of microworking
Microworking is the new trend currently in vogue in the world of nomadic and mobile work.
If remote working has become more popular, especially since the strike action that paralyzed the French transits in December, and since the coworking spaces demand has increased, microworking is the last trendy way of working.
Julien Foussard introduces its benefits. Who didn’t wait in a train station or an airport? Who didn’t have the feeling to lose his time in a waiting room for a medical appointment? With microworking, you will be efficient during downtime by working during the breaks.
Just like when you work in a café or a hotel lobby, the idea is to take advantage of the common places to work from anywhere.
The spaces need to be a minimum comfortable and quiet in order to think with serenity. However, with a laptop and a Wi-Fi connection (you can get, with a connection sharing feature), you can literally work from anywhere.
Several organizations have understood the rise of microworking and directly offer their users some dedicated services.
For example, since 2016 SNCF has offered the “Work and Station” spaces which give the travelers 10 to 50 square meter spaces with offices, plugs and Wi-Fi connection. Today, there are approximately 70 spaces of that kind in France.
The acoustic and connected cabin designed by WeeM, a French firm based in Rouen, is another initiative. It can be installed anywhere and provides the user with maximum levels of comfort. Their ambition is to implement 2,000 cabins all around the country.
This type of work enables professionals to keep on with their tasks, wherever they are in order to maximize their working time. This new way of life shakes up the daily management and organization.
However, Julien Foussard warns against the adverse effects of the nomadic ways of working. Indeed, when you give someone the possibility to work from anywhere, the boundaries between the professional and the personal lives are muddled. The break and disconnection times are considerably questioned and reduced.
Julien Foussard warns against the adverse effects of microworking
If the benefits of microworking are undeniable as it gives you the possibility to maximize your working time and your productivity, Mr. Foussard warns us against the consequences of this nomadic way of working.
Removing the boundary between the working space and the private life can cause a heavy mental burden provoked by an absence of disconnection.
If you can work from anywhere, how can you physically mark the end of your working day? With no justified excuse to stop working, you can create a new source of guilt and prevent you from disconnecting.
For Julien Foussard, it is essential to understand microworking as a way to catch up or to organize better. However, it should not be perceived as an order to work at any price, whatever the place and time.
In order to remain efficient and productive at work, taking breaks is vital.
Productivity and creativity are boosted by desire and you can only generate desire by disconnecting at times.
You will only be able to rise up and step back by allowing yourself to take breaks and to relax on some situations.
Distancing yourself from the issues often produces a new perspective and new ideas on the matter. Julien Foussard concludes it is a way to picture and design a project with a new approach, and a good means to move forward.
