Despite the end of the corona pandemic, the pathogen has permanently changed working life according to unanimous assessments in business and science. In particular, home office work has become firmly established three years after the start of the first corona lockdown. Neither the Association of Bavarian Business (vbw) nor the DGB nor the Munich Ifo Institute assume that employees will work in the office again in the usual numbers. “Home office and video conferences are common practice in companies today and it’s hard to imagine everyday business life without them,” said vbw CEO Bertram Brossardt.
On March 21, 2020, the first corona lockdown began with rigid contact and exit restrictions – including the closure of playgrounds and sports fields. According to a current vbw study, 96 percent of the companies surveyed from the industrial and service sectors now offer at least part of the workforce the opportunity to work from home. Before the pandemic began in 2019, it was just over half.
“As a result, it can also be assumed that the actual home office days have increased by leaps and bounds,” says Brossardt. Video conferences are now part of everyday life in 93 percent of companies, compared to only 26 percent in 2019.
According to the Munich Ifo Institute, the proportion of employees who work at home has stabilized at around a quarter. In some sectors, home workers are still in the large majority, as with IT service providers with over 70 percent.
The former concern of many companies that unsupervised employees in the home office would become sluggish has so far not come true. “As a rule, working from home does not reduce productivity, in some cases productivity increases are even measurable, with increasing job satisfaction among employees,” says Jean-Victor Alipour, an expert at the Munich Ifo Institute. Negative productivity effects of working from home were mainly documented in the early days of the pandemic, when companies had to adapt.
However, some studies indicate that the creativity of teams could suffer from working from home. Alipour refers to a study published in 2022, according to which video conferences are less conducive to the development of creative ideas than face-to-face meetings.
“For many people, working from home is part of the new normal, although the degree of use varies greatly depending on the professional activity and the level of qualification,” agrees the Bavarian DGB chairman Bernhard Stiedl.
One consequence of the pandemic was that workers turned their backs on some sectors in droves, such as in the catering industry. “Whole sector shifts of workers could be observed,” says Stiedl. »The cuts caused by the pandemic, for example in the area of the self-employed or mini-jobbers, are still visible today.«
According to the DGB, many companies have themselves to blame for the lack of staff: “Sectors that are now again wearing the word “lack of skilled workers” offered insufficient protection during the pandemic, so that many employees reoriented themselves.” “Homework for better social security” remained, says Stiedl. However, vbw and DGB agree in their assessment that the Bavarian labor market was generally robust during the crisis.
A major concern for many companies is the skills shortage, which is expected to worsen in the future. An open question is whether jobs in which working from home is hardly or not at all possible will become less popular in the long term. Examples would be bakers, construction and industrial workers as well as nursing staff.
Business associations such as vbw insist that companies should be able to decide whether to offer home office or not. “It must not be ordered by the state,” says Brossardt.
Another question is the possible long-term consequences of home office and digitization for mental well-being. Years before the start of the pandemic, the number of sick leave and inability to work due to mental illness was increasing, and the trend is continuing unabated. “The arguments about a good design of the new possibilities are ongoing,” says Stiedl, state chairman of the DGB. »Because only a minority felt relieved by using digital work tools during the pandemic.«
According to vbw, however, the pandemic has resulted in increased health awareness among both companies and employees. “Mental health care has also come to the fore,” says Brossardt. »We have seen that long-term work from home can cause psychological problems, such as loneliness.«
© dpa-infocom, dpa:230320-99-17373/2
