The new software doesn’t work for the important video meeting, of all things, the hotline for help leaves you on hold, and the daughter in home class now really wants to have this math problem explained, which she doesn’t understand. Many parents experienced the home office as a relief during the pandemic, as an opportunity to take care of children or the household from time to time. A survey by the German Trade Union Federation (DGB) now shows, however: Even more employees in the home office, namely almost a third, perceive work at home as an additional burden.
Employees were most often concerned when they did not receive technical support for the new digital devices (47 percent), when there was no training for them (44 percent) or when the apartment was not suitable for home office, for example because a separate study was missing and one was referred to the noise of the kitchen-cum-living room. Stress also caused new software and the double requirements as an employee and as an assistant teacher in distance learning (39 percent each). The pandemic has brought about a strong and, on the one hand, welcome boost in digitization in companies. On the other hand, however, many employees apparently feel pushed into this digitization.
The representative survey “DGB-Index Gute Arbeit” reflects the employees’ view of their working conditions. To this end, the trade union federation had a good 6,400 randomly selected employees from all industries surveyed nationwide in the first half of this year, i.e. in a marriage of lockdowns, contact restrictions and home office requirements, above all on the effects of the corona pandemic on the world of work.
Nine out of ten respondents do not receive any home work subsidy from the company
A high proportion of respondents indicated that their employer did not provide them with financial support at home: 91 percent did not receive a subsidy, for example for additional electricity or heating costs, almost half of those working from home (43 percent) cannot retreat to their own study.
The index also highlights how unevenly the corona risks are distributed among employees. Almost a quarter of employees do not feel well protected against infection at work, although this depends heavily on the occupation, including how well the work can be relocated to the home office. Educators, teachers and social workers see themselves as being particularly poorly protected, all professions with a lot of direct contact with people. According to the survey, teachers at universities, architects or professions in the field of marketing and advertising are at the other end of the spectrum.
DBG chairman Reiner Hoffmann said that the health of employees must have “top priority” even in the fourth wave of pandemics. “It is therefore right that the occupational health and safety regulations have been extended and that 3G has been introduced in the workplace.” Now these rules have to be implemented, and that is where employers are responsible.