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Home office worker: Just one offer
Photo: Fabian Strauch / dpa
At least this time it was not just about roll calls.
The proportion of work in the home office is to be increased by ordinance.
This is what the Federal Chancellor and the heads of government of the federal states have now decided.
However, they have agreed on the softest possible regulation.
Employers must enable employees to work from home - with a double restriction: "where it is possible" and "if the activities permit".
The employees themselves, on the other hand, are completely free to come to the office anyway - they are not even asked, but merely asked to accept the offer to work from home.
This decision doesn't even come close to being a home office requirement.
This would now be urgently needed - both for employers and employees.
Because the potential is huge.
In a pandemic - especially in such a critical phase as the current one - a very simple rule applies: Avoid any unnecessary contact!
In schools, daycare centers, gastronomy, retail and in private life, the possibilities for this - ordered by the state - are almost exhausted.
In the office and on the way there are obviously still many of these unnecessary contacts.
In a survey by the Association of the Bavarian Economy (vbw) last week, two thirds of the companies stated that they had workplaces that were capable of working from home.
But in only 64 percent of these companies home office is also carried out - in more than a third people work in the office, although it would also be possible from home.
In Germany, millions of people meet completely unnecessarily other people every day and thus endanger themselves and others, sometimes only briefly in the train or in the underground car park, sometimes for many hours in the open-plan office.
The decision of the federal and state governments can only reduce a small part of these unnecessary contacts: namely, where bosses (yes, almost always men) insist on being present on principle, even though employees want to work at home.
Such bosses are now left with loopholes, not allowing home office after all - for "compelling operational reasons", as it is called in the draft regulation from the Ministry of Labor, a flexible term.
In this context, however, it is even more fatal to leave the employees free to choose because all too often this will only appear to be free: Where supervisors have made it clear for months that they strictly reject home office, this becomes a factual obligation to continue to the office anyway to come so as not to endanger your career or even your job.
The decision will have very little effect on those who can and are allowed to work in the home office anyway, but not do it.
There are some good, but far more less good reasons for this.
The fact is that at the same time millions of saleswomen, hairdressers, artists and cooks are not allowed to work at all, while many only drive to the office because it is uncomfortable at home.
You will hardly be impressed by the requests of the Chancellor and the country leaders.
Admittedly, it may be legally difficult to oblige employees to work from home.
But legal concerns have so far not stopped politicians from at least trying if a rule to contain the pandemic seemed sensible.
It is time for a simple sentence from the very first Corona occupational safety standard from April 2020 to finally become binding for employers and employees: "Office work should be carried out from home if possible."
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