Missing Link: What remained of home office six years after the first lockdown
Six years after the lockdown, the German relationship with the workplace has changed. However, discussions about returning to the office often miss the mark.
(Image: Vera Petrunina/Shutterstock)
"Varus, give me back my legions!", Emperor Augustus is said to have exclaimed after the failed campaign in Germania in the year 9 AD. Just as the Roman Emperor could no longer find his legions, so too did one branch manager, team leader, or company boss or another 2011 years later, during the early phase of the Corona pandemic: The host of employees suddenly disappeared when the nationwide lockdown was announced on March 22, 2020.
To this day, some bosses have not found their legions – who continue to work at least partially from locations apart from company premises. Almost a quarter of German employees stay away from the employer's premises at least one day a week – and this number seems to be consolidating further.
Factor of Children's Joys
The "Home Office", as it is called in perfect Denglish (in the United Kingdom it refers to the Home Office), is significantly more productive than one might think – at least in one dimension. Couples who work partly from home show a higher birth rate, according to researchers from the Ifo Institute in Munich in an analysis published in early March. But contrary to what one might think: the birth rate does not continue to rise with more days of work from home. This is why the researchers would rather not make any causal assumptions whether it is the better compatibility of family matters with professional activity or the better compatibility of family expansion activities with the profession. This is primarily responsible here. However, according to the researchers, one thing is clear: at least one day of "Work from Home" correlates with the frequency of children; if both work away from the company for at least one day, children are even more likely.
A key factor here is primarily the time constraint. Because only working hours and commuting times together result in the absence, which must be covered, especially when there are young children, with childcare times. According to the labor force survey of the Federal Statistical Office, one-third of full-time employees spend at least one hour a day on commuting. If all working time regulations with mandatory breaks are strictly adhered to, this would correspond to a total absence of about 10 hours for 8 hours of work. So, if the commute is converted to an hourly wage, those who avoid the commute have a 10 percent higher salary – but they also bear part of the costs themselves, which their employer would otherwise bear.
Re-calling with Risks
However, there is recurring dissatisfaction among employers, and not just due to the effect of the invisible legions. In fact, many companies, despite many digital tools, still have difficulties integrating their employees into workflows and knowledge management equally well or poorly. What is standard in global corporations, that work is done digitally and tasks are distributed across locations and teams worldwide, is an organizational and cultural challenge for many medium-sized and smaller companies. Even if the employees usually speak the same language.
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According to a study by the Institute for Economic and Social Sciences of the trade union-affiliated Hans Böckler Institute, about one-third of employees have so far experienced a recall to the office. However, ordering employees back to the office is not always successful for employers – unless the separation from each other is the actually desired effect. According to the employees, 86.5 percent of supervisors stated that the return was about better collegial exchange, three quarters wanted to "facilitate" teamwork – and only just under half wanted to increase productivity.
Main Reason: Desire for Control?
Employees, on the other hand, suspected something entirely different: More than half saw "lack of trust" as the main reason, and three out of five respondents suspected a stronger desire for control from the employer. There is primarily one crystallization point for this: the question whether work is actually being done at home. There is no shortage of anecdotal evidence of household activities being carried out during time-intensive company calls, from washing machine beeps to children's cries to colleagues cooking. But where exactly the line is drawn and whether it is not often shifted in favor of the employer remains unclear. However, working hours must be recorded regardless of the place of work – and correctly.
Because fundamentally, when non-work is done without an official break, there is a risk of "working time fraud," which – as on-site as well – can lead to a warning or even termination. Only: An employer can hardly prove this. And if they introduce generally permissible monitoring methods, it can backfire.
Often No Legal Right to Home Work Location
So, from the employer's perspective, the recall action remains as an alternative. Because legally, there is often no direct entitlement not to have to come to the company. The Federal Labor Court ruled in October 2025 (2 AZR 302/24) that if nothing else is expressly agreed upon in the contract, the employee is generally subject to the employer's "right of direction." A general "right to home office," as the traffic light coalition once envisioned, does not exist in labor law to this day. However, it always depends on the circumstances of the individual case whether an employer may require attendance, as further court rulings show. The BAG ruling went against the employee, among other things, because he had previously only worked from home on a daily basis, not fully. After the closure of "his" location, he now wanted to work fully remotely – but the judges found that this was not "the same workplace" as before.
In other cases, however, courts have also ruled differently: A transfer to a branch office 500 kilometers away was inadmissible, for example, the Cologne Regional Labor Court found in a drastic case. And so, for such disputes in Germany, there will likely continue to be little clarity, except for one very simple one: the employee's interests must always be considered despite the right of direction – anyone who believes they can get rid of employees by forced transfer to other company locations must take their concerns into account.
And anyone who, as an employee, really wants to be certain should have their remote work contractually guaranteed from the outset – and employers are also well advised to thoroughly check beforehand whether they really want to revoke it. The mere wish of the general to be able to inspect his troops is regularly not enough. Because the fact that they are not coming has long been factored in.
Alone in the Field on Fridays
For employers, another question now arises: How to deal with the "Tues-Wed-Thurs" problem? Many companies have reduced their office space due to yawning emptiness – and abandoned rigid office concepts in favor of flexible desks. However, employee attendance remains low at many companies on Mondays and Fridays – while on Wednesdays, the reduced space can sometimes become tight, even too tight. The phenomenon, long known from jobs with long-distance commuters, has long since affected large parts of the economy. And the fact that Friday, in particular, has always been less well-staffed in many service industries and administration, especially among part-time workers, does not help either.
Here to Stay?
But what is the interim assessment after half a decade of increased remote work in the Federal Republic, which is oriented towards work culture traditions? A request to the relevant institutions: The Federation of German Employers' Associations (BDA) considers the topic too unimportant to comment on it at all. And the German Trade Union Confederation (DGB) is also unable to comment – it can only refer to figures from a survey from 2020. Somehow, at least, no excessive social explosive material seems to be seen in this at present.
Screen Work Guidelines Could Be Revised
At least: The Federal Ministry of Labor (BMAS) is still dealing with it, at least in partial aspects. While nothing remains of the previous government's considerations to legally anchor a right to work from home. But: The EU Commission is revising the "Directive 90/270/EEC on the minimum requirements for safety and health protection in work with display screen equipment," as is known at the BMAS. "However, there is currently no concrete timetable for this." Since 1990, the year Nintendo launched the SuperNES on the Japanese market and Steve Jobs wanted to help NeXT succeed, it has regulated the minimum standards that a workplace with a screen must meet. In Germany, it is implemented as part of the Ordinance on Workplaces and is further specified in the Technical Rules for Workplaces. However, these usually only refer to formal "teleworkplaces." Therefore, the BMAS states: The "requirement for a Technical Rule for location-flexible screen work outside of workplaces" should also be examined. In other words: Mr. Müller and Mr. Meier could also be protected from possible long-term health consequences when working on the train, in a café, or on the sofa with well-specified guidelines.
Little Progress Besides Home Office Flat Rate
So what is the interim assessment regarding "Work from Home"? In fact, there are hardly any uniform findings, even six years after the nationwide lockdown on March 22, 2020. Many of the questions that were open at the time have hardly been clarified to this day, and the legal situation, which was already outdated and insufficient at the time, has hardly developed further since then. At least: Six euros per day of work from home can be claimed for tax purposes, up to a maximum of 210 days per working year.
In other areas, the largely missing legal development can also be viewed positively: employers still have no right to prevent their employees from coming to the company. Because the right of direction cannot encompass working from home as long as it is not an official company location. Whether employees could actually work if they spontaneously returned to the company premises on-site would not be their problem; ensuring this is solely the responsibility of the employer. The laundry, however, would have to wait longer.
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