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Home office: One's joy, the other's pain - and sometimes both at the same time
Photo: Finn Winkler / picture alliance / dpa
Working in your own four walls has been boosted by the pandemic: According to a study by the Hans Böckler Foundation, just four percent of the workforce in Germany mainly or exclusively used the home office before the Corona crisis.
During the first shutdown, the share rose to 27 percent in April 2020.
The numbers are now falling again, but they are still significantly higher than before the pandemic.
General statements about what the new world of work means for employees are difficult to substantiate.
After all, the conditions for the home office are anything but uniform: Some have to work at the kitchen table when there is noise from children, others set up the south wing of their spacious loft as a study.
What can be compared, however, is what changes in communication.
A study by Microsoft that has now been published in the journal Nature Human Behavior analyzes the data and communication of almost 61,000 employees from December 2019 to June 2020. In March 2020, the technology company ordered home offices, and since then employees have largely been free to choose where they work from want.
Result of the study: Although people worked more in the home office, communication and collaboration between different departments suffered.
Employees spent less time face-to-face, and sent more emails and text messages.
According to the authors, this leads to employees being isolated and less information being exchanged.
That in turn could have a negative impact on production and innovation.
Microsoft had already reported in March that, compared to the previous year, more than 40 billion additional e-mails and chat messages were counted via the widespread Outlook service worldwide (not just within the company).
Even after work, there was more work.
For Hannes Zacher, work and organizational psychologist at the University of Leipzig, the study shows only one side: “While the Microsoft analysis offers a rather negative perspective, there is also evidence in research that making it possible to work from home is positive Employees can be accepted - but only if it stays within a certain framework. ”According to studies, one to two days of home office per week are ideal for satisfaction and self-reported productivity.
In such a framework, it would be possible not only to design communication digitally, but also to hold personal conversations. “From a psychological point of view, a video conference is still better than an email. In the long run, however, it cannot replace face-to-face conversations, especially when it comes to talking to one another in a trusting manner, working together creatively or resolving conflicts. "
Zacher himself had started at the end of 2019 to survey almost 1,000 workers about their physical and mental health. The beginning of the pandemic turned it into a long-term study: the participants have been surveyed monthly since March 2021. The psychologist collected observations on the consequences of the corona crisis on the world of work. "Before the pandemic, extroverts were compared to introverts with the higher levels of well-being," Zacher cites an example. It was the other way around: "Extroverts were more likely to be stressed by the situation, while introverts coped better with it." Reticent people in particular found formats such as video conferences to be more pleasant.
At the same time, Zacher and his colleagues saw that teams were breaking up into subgroups more quickly - an observation that fits in with a result of the Microsoft study. "One possible breaking point is the one between employees who are present and those who work in the home office," he explains. Here, the company management must ensure that there are no feelings of inequality: "Managers must communicate and justify the work structures well so that neither satisfaction nor corporate culture suffer."
In Germany, the topic is also on the political agenda: At the latest Prime Minister's Conference, the heads of government of the federal states took the decision to promote the »crisis resilience of the state, administration and economy« and, for example, seize the opportunities offered by »an expanded range of Home office «offer.
This allows "more flexibility in the way work is organized" and improves the compatibility of work and family.
Home office regulations have "made a substantial contribution to the containment of the infection rate," says the decision.
It has been shown that "the location-independent, digitally supported work has often worked much better than was generally expected at the beginning."
Home office: out of sight, out of mind?
However, younger employees in particular fear disadvantages for their professional development - according to the motto: Out of sight, out of mind.
This is shown by a survey by the market research consultancy Censuswide on behalf of the career portal LinkedIn.
1004 German employees who have an office job were surveyed.
In addition, the market and opinion research institute YouGov also conducted a survey on behalf of LinkedIn between August 4th and September 1st among executives from companies with at least 1,000 employees and annual sales of at least 250 million US dollars.
In Germany, 253 executives took part.
more on the subject
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(No longer) lonely in the home office: Why office gossip is good for us An appreciation from Katharina Hölter
Every second respondent from the age group between 16 and 24 believes that working from home could have a negative impact on their careers. On the one hand, because you have less contact with superiors and are more easily ignored during promotions, and on the other hand, because there are fewer opportunities to learn from colleagues.
Across all respondents, 61 percent believe that their professional learning has been negatively impacted by the pandemic; among the boys it was as much as 82 percent. They lacked fewer advanced training courses, many of which were also offered digitally, than casual learning in conversation or direct collaboration. Almost all executives (89 percent) believe that they will learn less if they cannot work in the office and if they do not have the opportunity to network and interact spontaneously.
Working from home triggers mixed feelings: On the one hand, 83 percent of those surveyed (but only 53 percent of the younger generation) prefer working from home or a mixture of office and home office.
They are happy that they no longer have to commute every day (45 percent), have a better work-life balance (38 percent) or are more productive at home (29 percent).
However, 40 percent also agree with the statement: "Those who work more from the office are more likely to be preferred by superiors and executives."
mh / with material from dpa
