In Germany, remote work still has a bright future

(ETX Daily Up) – Companies around the world are encouraging their employees to return to their workplaces more regularly. They justify this choice by saying that remote work harms productivity. But this line of defense is having difficulty convincing in Germany. In fact, employers in the country view this method of organization very positively.

The majority of German managers are convinced that the productivity level of remote workers is equivalent to that of workers who go to the office, according to a survey* conducted by the Ifo Institute. In detail, 60.1% believe their employees are just as effective remotely as they are in person. Only 31.6% of those surveyed believe that employees would benefit from productivity if they worked only from the office. However, we notice slight differences according to sectors of activity. Thus, wholesale employers in particular see that their workers will benefit from coming to the office. Nearly 40% of them believe they would be more productive using this method of organization. Construction professionals also show a slight preference for working face-to-face (32.7%). Pro-office business leaders believe that face-to-face meeting is synonymous with increased employee productivity. A large percentage of them (39%) estimate that this increase will be in the range of 10 to 20%. According to them, this phenomenon is mainly due to improved coordination and communication between teams when they meet in the same place (87%). Going to the office every day also facilitates knowledge sharing and transfer internally (77%) as well as team management (51.8%). There is another advantage: meeting face-to-face would expose workers to less decentralization factors, according to them. One day of remote work per week

Unsurprisingly, employers support itDistance working They are not of this opinion. Two-thirds of those surveyed (64.5%) say workers are less distracted when they work at home, since they are not exposed to noise. The hustle and bustle inherent in corporate life – Especially in open space. These leaders also believe that they are more effective in their tasks thanks to the greater organizational flexibility that distance learning provides (68.9%). They also believe that they are more satisfied with their professional lives (64%) and that they maintain a better balance between their personal and professional lives (59.5%). All these advantages make them believe that returning to the office full time would undermine their work Productivity active. These potential losses may range from 5 to 20%, according to their estimates.

Despite the discrepancies, the results of this survey show how well-established remote work is in the German world of work. Germany is one of the countries where most people work from home. On average, Germans benefit from one day of remote work per week, according to A study conducted by the Ifo Institute and Econpol Europe, based on a sample of 42,400 people in 34 industrialized countries. This applies to the Dutch, Finns and New Zealanders.

In this context, we should not expect German workers to give up the benefits offered by remote work, especially if they have their employers’ approval. “Positive experience for the majority [des dirigeants d’entreprise] “In terms of productivity, it is an important reason why working from home has become established in many German companies,” confirms Matthias Dolls, researcher at ifo, in statement.

*This survey was conducted by the Ifo Institute among 9,000 German companies in August 2023.