Status: 12.01.2022 10:42 a.m.
Federal Labor Minister Heil wants to establish home office in everyday German work even after the pandemic. To this end, employers should be permanently obliged to enable them to work from home.
Federal Labor Minister Hubertus Heil is planning a legal right to work from home. “I am in favor of the fact that we draw fundamental consequences for the world of work from the corona-related, unplanned large-scale attempt at home office,” he told the dpa news agency. According to the minister, the traffic light coalition will create “modern rules for mobile working in Germany” and a legal right to work from home. With this, the Federal Minister wants to permanently integrate working from home into the German world of work.
Heil’s plans provide that employees must be able to work from home in the future, provided that they do not necessarily have to be present at the company. Employees may then only be refused to work from home for compelling reasons: “For example, because you work in the steelworks at the blast furnace and of course you cannot work from home,” explained Heil: “But if the employer cannot give any operational reasons, the claim to work in the home office should apply. That finally gives many people the opportunity to work from home even after the pandemic. ”
Mobile working as “new freedom”
For many people, mobile work means “a new freedom” and a better work-life balance, stressed Heil. But his perception is also that many do not want to work from home permanently, but only occasionally. For this, too, he wanted to “create more flexibility,” said Heil.
At the same time, the Minister of Labor also pointed out “the downsides in the home office”, which he absolutely wanted to narrow down. “Work shouldn’t make you sick. Even in the home office there has to be time after work.”
Since November 2020, employers have been obliged to offer their employees work from home – unless there are operational reasons against it. This is one of the measures taken to contain the spread of the coronavirus.
According to the Ifo Institute, around 27.9 percent of employees currently work from home. Four out of ten of these employees feel stressed in the home office because of a poorly equipped workplace. This is the result of a Forsa survey for the Techniker Krankenkasse, which is available to the Funke media group. According to this, the psychological stress on employees in particular increased as a result of the pandemic.