‘Avoid one-size-fits-all rules for remote working’, encourages LeoVegas Director of Data

As companies try to consider how and if to return to the office post-COVID, with many calling for some level of continued remote working, Robert Farrugia, director of data & analytics at LeoVegas Group has encouraged employers to adapt strategies to find “the best balance between productivity/creativity and communication”, thus avoiding a “one-size-fits-all approach”.

Taking to social media to address the divisive debate, Mr Farrugia weighed the advantages of remote working and office working while “most companies are trying to figure out whether their employees should work remotely or from the office”.

“Working remotely gives people the space and time to be more productive and creative, however during the past year we have also learned that such creativity is useless unless people get together to share and help each other build on their ideas”, he observed.

On the other hand, productivity is “probably best achieved when working alone” and communication (facilitated by people being in the same room) without this, is “also useless”, he acknowledged.

Instead of choosing one or the other, a compromise should be reached, with companies avoiding a one-size-fits-all approach to working arrangements, Mr Farrugia suggested.

They “need to trust that their employees know what’s best for them to maximise their potential given the tasks at hand”, he said.

The issue of remote working has been a controversial one, with companies in the iGaming industry and elsewhere now responding to knowledge and experience gained over the pandemic.

Betsson, for example, has recognised the impact of the pandemic, announcing its introduction of a ‘Hybrid WFH’ Model in May, intended to offer a balance between remote working and office working.

Outside of iGaming, some major and influential employers have announced more radical changes, with Facebook among those saying employees will now have the option to continue working remotely, full-time and in the long term.

Writing a memo to staff at the time, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg shared his own experience of working from home, commenting that it had made him “happier and more productive at work” and that it had given him “more space for long-term thinking”. He also added that it allowed him to spend more time with family.