About two thirds of Germans would like to work regularly or partly from home instead of going to the offices in their companies. However, currently only one in one hundred employees has the opportunity to work from home. This is the finding of a respresentative survey among more than 1000 Germans carried out by the Forsa market research institute on behalf of the German Association for Information Management, Telecommunications and New Media (BITKOM).
According to this study, 50% of Germans would like to work from their home offices on several days each week and 17% would even prefer to work always from home. One quarter of respondents is not at all enthusiastic about home offices and like to go to their company work places every day. “Employees and businesses could equally benefit from telework and flexible working hours“, says BITKOM chairman Prof. August-Wilhelm Scheer.
Employees could thus better combine their private and professional lives and employers ensure that highly qualified staff remain in a company for a long period of time. Additional advantages are that telework saves commuters time and money and employers could reduce office space.
Home office are particularly appealing to the younger generation. Almost 80% of people aged between 30 and 39 would like to work on several days or only from home each week. In the age group of people between 50 and 59 this percentage is 61% and 50% among those over 60 years of age. There are no significant differences between women and men in this respect.
“Telework requires an open business culture which appreciates the self-responsibility of employees“, warns Mr. Scheer. “Working from home needs a high degree of self-motivation and self-discipline.“ Furthermore there is no clear separation between private and professional lives. Employees should be ready to be available at times different from regular office hours, says Mr. Scheer.
The technical preconditions for teleworking are easy to fulfill: computer, internet access and telephone. “Nowadays almost any office job can be trasferred to the private home desk at low cost“, is the encouragement given by Mr. Scheer to entrepreneurs. 