According to the results of a recent survey, only four percent of companies in Germany want to completely abolish working from home. (Source: Bella H., Pixabay)
According to a recent survey by the Ifo Institute, three out of four companies that allow home office work want to keep it unchanged. “The results refute the view that the trend is back to the office,” says Ifo researcher Jean-Victor Alipour. According to the survey, only twelve percent of companies are planning stricter regulations and only four percent want to abolish working from home completely. “Public reporting focuses on individual companies that are planning to reduce home office work. This exaggerates the actual development,” says Alipour. Eleven percent of companies even want to make the regulations more flexible.
According to the survey, working from home is generally possible in 79 percent of companies. This is much more common in large companies (93 percent) than in small and medium-sized companies (75 percent). The sectors also differ: while 82 percent of service providers and 89 percent of industrial companies can offer home offices, this only applies to 40 percent of construction and trading companies. Across all sectors, only a minority would like to limit or abolish working from home.
“It is undisputed that working from home is superior to working from home in some aspects. However, stricter rules through greater coordination of shared working hours can make working from home more productive overall,” says Alipour. 13 percent of service providers and eight percent of industrial companies are planning more flexible home office regulations. “Working from home is and will remain firmly established in Germany,” says Alipour, who concludes: “The clocks are not turning back to 2019.”
