Majority of German companies do not want to shake up the home office

There is no major trend in German companies to call employees back to the office after working from home, according to a survey by the ifo Institute. According to the survey, only 12 percent of companies were planning stricter guidelines and only four percent wanted to abolish working from home completely. On the other hand, 75 percent of companies in which working from home is possible wanted to keep it unchanged. 13 percent of service providers and eight percent of industrial companies were even planning more flexible home office regulations.

"These results refute the view that the trend is moving back to the office," says ifo researcher Jean-Victor Alipour according to the press release. "Public reporting focuses on individual companies where working from home is to be scaled back. This exaggerates the actual development," explains Alipour. A study by the ZEW economic research institute recently came to similar conclusions.

"The clocks are not turning back to 2019"

Of course, not every job is suitable for working from home. According to the ifo researchers, working from home is generally possible in 79% of companies. This is significantly more common in large companies (93%) than in small and medium-sized enterprises (75%). There are also industry differences: 82 percent of service providers and 89 percent of industrial companies are able to offer home offices, but only 40 percent of construction and retail companies. Across all sectors, only a minority wanted to restrict or abolish working from home. "Working from home is and will remain firmly anchored in Germany," concludes Alipour. "The clocks are not turning back to 2019."

Leaders in the tech industry in particular, especially in the USA, have repeatedly made public statements against working from home and ordered employees back to the office, at least in part. The most recent example of this is Oneplus co-founder Carl Pei and his smartphone start-up Nothing in London: Pei has announced that all 450 employees are to work from home five days a week again. In his letter to employees posted on LinkedIn, Pei argues that the close collaboration between departments that is needed and the fast pace of work at Nothing simply cannot be achieved remotely.

According to a survey by the service provider Bamboo HR, some US managers may also have pushed the obligation to return to the office as a kind of hidden job reduction. According to the survey, 25 percent of senior management among those surveyed are said to have hoped to persuade some employees to resign voluntarily. In Germany, for example, SAP CEO Christian Klein caused displeasure among the workforce when the software company's liberal home office rules were replaced by a three-day attendance requirement.

(axk)