COVID: Never back to the office?

Claudia Kern* is happy. Her employer has decided that she and her roughly 200 colleagues can choose where they want to work from three days a week, despite no longer being legally obliged to allow staff to work in what's known in Germany as "the home office". "My boss said we worked well from home," explains the 54-year-old project manager. She says the pandemic taught her to appreciate the flexibility of budgeting her own time and deciding herself when to look after kids and when to power up her computer. She saved an hour's commute every day, too.

At midnight on June 30, 2021, the temporary national law was popularly known as the "federal emergency brake"expired. The law prescribed nationally applicable rules to combat high rates of Covid-1ß infections. One of the rules obliged employers to facilitate the home office whenever possible. Its place is now taken by another temporary measure — provisionally valid until September 10 — a labor law stipulating that employers must draw up hygiene plans and provide two tests per week.

Stay-at-home workers

Officially, 45 million people in Germany are employed. According to the Federal Statistics Office, 4% of them regularly worked from home before the pandemic struck. By January 2021, that figure had risen to 24%. The digital business federation, Bitkom, says a further 20% occasionally worked from home. That means nearly 45% of the workforce in Germany has some experience of remote working.

Many people are looking forward to seeing their coworkers in the office again. But there are many others who have developed a taste for remote working. "More than 80% of the people who were consigned to working from home would like to continue, at least part-time,", says industrial psychologist Bertolt Meyer of Chemnitz Technical University.

Conflicting interest

Employers have mixed feelings about these developments. Steffen Kampeter, managing director of the Employers' Federation BDA says he expects remote working to continue where "operational demands" allow it. A deliberately flexible formulation. Kampeter insists that employers allowed staff to work in the home office of their own free will, at their own expense and with great reliability in recent months. Kampeter, who vehemently opposed any legal obligation to allow remote working, says this shows that there is "no need for a law. "

The trade unions, predictably enough, see it differently. They are pushing for binding legislation. German labor minister Hubertus Heil of the Social Democratic Party tried to introduce a right to remote working but was stymied by opposition from his conservative coalition partners. The head of the German Federation of Trades Unions (DGB), Reiner Hoffmann, reckons the can has now been kicked down the road until after the federal elections in September.

Legal technicalities and terminology

Despite its reputation for rules and regulations, Germany has no clear laws on work that is not performed directly on company premises. The terminology itself can be confusing. Legally, the "home office" is defined as a workplace in a person's own home and requires permanent fittings. The employer is obliged to provide the employee not just with technical equipment such as a laptop but also with proper office furniture.

However, if the contract stipulates "mobile working", these obligations no longer apply. The employer does not even have to provide a laptop. But they can't tell their staff where to work either. As long as employees get their work done, it doesn't matter where they do it, be it in the local cafe or in a different town altogether.

Fewer breaks, longer hours

The trade unions acknowledge that many workers have got to like this flexibility. They point to the downsides of mobile working, too. "The pandemic exposed the serious issues with the home office," says DGB boss Hoffmann. "Excessive working hours, unpaid overtime, demands for constant availability, unreliable equipment or digital surveillance."

Germany's health insurers agree. Jens Baas, head of the "Techniker Krankenkasse", acknowledges that it has become easier to combine work and family. However, he adds that "If you are at home and people are constantly expecting things of you, it can be more stressful than the conventional office." He says many employees struggle to limit their working hours, take mandatory breaks and knock off punctually.

'Laptop neck'

If the stress leads to health issues, the health insurers have to pay for the treatment. The same goes for back problems or other maladies associated with poor posture or the simple lack of proper of-fice furniture. New expressions are entering insurance parlance, for example, "laptop neck", neck pain, or stiffness caused by people adopting unhealthy postures at their mobile computers.

Baas says the challenge is not for employers alone, though. "Home office also places new responsibilities on employees."

Reinventing office space

If fewer people are in the office five days a week, other ripple effects will become apparent. In commercial districts, the hospitality industry will have fewer customers. Demand for business clothing will fall and cleaning companies won't have as many clients.

Real estate, too, will have to reinvent itself. As far back as October 2020, a study by the consultancy firm PwC Deutschland pointed out that the home office harbored huge potential for cutting expenses. "Space optimization" is a central term in the survey, which also included 100 German employers. 60% of companies expect to be able to reduce office space by 20% over the next three years.

First come, first served

This development is well underway where project manager Claudia Kern works. Employees no longer have the right to their own desk. There are considerably fewer terminals than employees and the desks are all but empty – just a monitor, a keyboard, and a docking station for each employee's own laptop. "Desksharing" (also known as hot desking) is the buzzword.

"Since there are always employees visiting clients, away on business trips, on vacation or sick leave, there has been enough desk space to go around," reports Kern. Her boss, however, plans to reduce office space even further. "There are popular and unpopular desks in our office," says Kern. "In future, I will probably have to start work by 8 am on office days if I want to get a quiet place to work."

*This is not her real name. The interviewee did not wish to see it published.

This article has been translated from German.

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