Almost a quarter of employees in Germany still worked from home at least part of the time in February. This is shown by a study by the ifo Institute. Some companies are now taking action against this.
Despite current debates about employees returning to the office, according to a study there is so far no discernible trend towards a decline in working from home. In February, almost a quarter of employees in Germany worked at least partially from home, as the Munich ifo Institute announced.
“The proportion has remained almost the same for two years,” explained ifo expert Jean-Victor Alipour. The home office has “been firmly established in Germany”. This comes from a survey of almost 9,000 companies.
Stricter requirements at SAP, Volkswagen or Deutsche Bank
Several large German companies have now made their home office requirements stricter. Since February, for example, the software company SAP has required its employees to work at least three days a week in the office or with customers. According to a spokesman, a transition period applies until May. At Telekom, too, employees in the office should be in the company again for three days, and managers should even be in the company for four days.
Volkswagen and Deutsche Bank have introduced similar requirements. At both companies, managers are required to be present at least four days a week. All other Deutsche Bank employees should come to the company for at least three days. The regulation has been in effect at VW since November, and at Deutsche Bank it will take effect from June.
Nevertheless, researchers do not see a clear trend towards people working from home less. Since the peak in home office work at the beginning of the Corona crisis in 2020, the proportion has tended to decrease slowly, said Philipp Grunau from the Nuremberg Institute for Labor Market and Occupational Research (IAB) to the dpa news agency. However, employees still spend significantly more time working from home than before the pandemic.
Promotes face-to-face work Knowledge transfer and creativity
In addition to announcements by individual companies such as Deutsche Bank regarding extensive attendance requirements for employees, various studies have recently suggested a trend towards moving away from home offices. In fact, this does not directly contradict the ifo data, as most rules on attendance requirements – including at Deutsche Bank – continue to allow partial working from home.
“Stronger coordination of office hours to strengthen personal exchange definitely makes sense,” explained Alipour from the ifo Institute. Because it is undisputed “that face-to-face work is superior to home office in some areas: for example in the transfer of knowledge, creativity in the group or social aspects.”
According to Ifo data, home office is noticeably less common in small and medium-sized companies: 20.5 percent of employees there regularly work from home; In large companies, however, according to ifo, the proportion is 32.1 percent. It is highest among service employees at 34.1 percent; in industry it is only 16 percent, in trade 12.2 percent and in the construction industry 5.4 percent.