Remote Work at Russian Enterprises

Remote employment is currently a popular employment format. During the time of the coronavirus pandemic, many companies first tried this format of work for themselves, and after the pandemic ended, they stayed with remote or hybrid work formats. The remote format of work provides significant benefits for businesses: reduced office costs, the ability to recruit more qualified staff, and increased productivity due to the increased productivity of employees who are more flexible in their work schedules when working remotely. This paper analyzed which businesses are more likely to have remote employees, and identified the characteristics of the businesses that will have a higher concentration of remote employment. The main method of the study was regression analysis. Two models were built: the probit model (to identify the characteristics of the enterprise that is more likely to have a remote employee) and the tobit model (to identify the characteristics of the enterprise where the concentration of remote employment will be higher). It turned out that enterprises located in Moscow or St. Petersburg are more likely to use the remote employment format compared to enterprises located in other regions of Russia. Also, the percentage of employees employed remotely is higher at such enterprises. Large enterprises are 6% less likely to have remote workers compared to small enterprises, and the percentage of such employees is lower by 2.36%. Medium-sized enterprises, on the other hand, are 1.78% less likely to have remote workers compared to small enterprises. Technical equipment also plays an important role: an enterprise with a better technological state is more likely to have remote workers. This probability is also higher in enterprises with a high level of digitalization.