Since the Corona pandemic, home office has become a normal part of work life in many companies. Most bosses want this to change soon.
Where do the 80 percent come from? The auditing and consulting firm KPMG surveyed 1,300 CEOs of large companies on how they plan to tackle the challenges of the present. The survey also sought opinions on the subject of home office. The results available on KPMG’s company homepage predict an end to the trend of recent years.
Is the home office coming to an end?
8 out of 10 surveyed CEOs want roles that used to be performed on-site in the office to return there. At the beginning of the year, only about a third wanted the end of home office for the majority of employees.
Enthusiasm for hybrid models has also declined: A few months ago, about half supported splitting work time between home and the office, now only one in five.
How do bosses plan to get employees back to the office? To incentivize this, they propose salary increases, promotions, or granted privileges. 90 percent of respondents indicate this.
However, looking at the downside, this reward could quickly be perceived as a threat. After all, better pay and a promotion should ideally be the norm for employees who stay and perform well.
Withholding these privileges because someone remains in the home office could therefore be understood as a means of pressure.
Whether these statements from CEOs will translate into reality and ultimately really lead to the end of home office on a larger scale remains to be seen. Data for 2023 from the Federal Statistical Office shows a significant share of home office in Germany since Corona.
About 20 percent of all employees work from their home desk at least sometimes, with about one in ten doing so regularly. This represents roughly a doubling compared to pre-Corona. However, the share is slowly declining again.
By the way, the billionaire Elon Musk has a completely different opinion about home office. He has no understanding of it whatsoever. In an interview, he expressed his views on the modern form of work for many professions: Elon Musk considers home office not only unproductive but also “morally reprehensible”.
