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Since the end of January, companies in Germany have been obliged to allow their employees to work from home if it is feasible.

However, according to a recent study by the Ifo Institute, only around 30 percent of employees worked at least partially in the home office in February.

“But the potential is 56 percent.

That is far from being exhausted, ”says Jean-Victor Alipour, doctoral student at the Ifo Institute and one of the authors.

The chance of reducing corona infections through the obligation of companies to work from home has therefore "so far partially fizzled out".

In order to fight Corona and to enable openings, it is necessary that more people work in the home office, write Alipour and colleagues.

That could mean expanding the home office obligation to include employees.

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“At the moment, there is only a request to employees in Germany to accept an offer to work from home.

France and Belgium, on the other hand, made it mandatory for employees to work from home in winter, ”says Alipour.

The risk of infection drops significantly

The University of Konstanz recently researched the effects of home office on the pandemic.

In the “Konstanz Home Office Study”, a total of 699 employees in Germany were surveyed from March 2020 to January 2021.

Accordingly, employees working from home have a significantly lower risk of infection.

"While only 1.2 percent of the employees who did not hold meetings in person tested positive for Covid-19, this was 9.9 percent of the employees with on-site meetings," said Alipour.

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This trend can also be found in other activities on site: Of the employees for whom the canteen or company restaurant was open (22 percent), a total of 9.8 percent have been infected with Corona since October 2020, while it was with the respondents closed canteen were only 2.7 percent.

In addition, 26 percent of those surveyed stated that they still meet frequently with other colleagues on site.

Among these employees, the proportion of Covid 19 infections was 9.1 percent, while only 2.5 percent of those who did not meet any colleagues on site had positive corona infections, according to the Konstanz researchers.

Little home work in smaller companies

Working at home could also be made more attractive with incentives - for employees and employers, suggests Ifo economist Alipour.

One could, for example, introduce upper occupancy limits for offices that make office workplaces more expensive for companies.

One could also think of giving employees more tax relief in the home office.

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So far, the legislature has introduced a corona flat rate of five euros per day and a maximum of 500 euros per year, which home workers can deduct from tax.

"This is only intended to relieve costs, not as an incentive," says Alipour.

With 40 percent, the service sector has the largest proportion of employees working from home.

"This is mainly due to the occupational structure and the job profiles of the industry," says Alipour.

In wholesale it is 24 percent, in industry just under 22 percent, in construction a good ten percent and in retail just under ten percent.

Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) have switched to working from home far less than large companies.

In industry, for example, almost a third of the employees in large companies currently work from home, while in SMEs only just under a quarter does.

Even before the corona crisis, however, working from home was much more common in larger companies.

Fewer “burned out” people in the home office

The Konstanz study at least indicates that productivity in the home office could be higher: "While 85 percent of those surveyed with the flexible working model rate their productivity as high or very high, this value is only 73 percent for those employees who work in full presence." according to the authors.

The values ​​of the employees' emotional exhaustion also made this contrast clear: 26 percent of those surveyed who worked in full presence stated that they felt emotionally exhausted and burned out.

“Only” 21 percent of the employees in flexible home office work felt emotionally exhausted.

Another current study by the Bonn Institute for the Future of Work (IZA) on behalf of the Federal Ministry of Labor showed that men and women assess their corona exposure differently.

48 percent of women often or always perceive their situation as “very stressful”, compared to only 36 percent of men.

General life satisfaction has decreased since the beginning of the pandemic: on a 10-point scale, the value in February was 6.7.

In April 2020 it was 7.4.

Majority wants to return to the office

The IZA study also shows that women working from home are less likely to be provided with computers, cell phones or an office chair by their employers than men.

In principle, however, employers seem to be taking care of the equipment of their employees at home: According to this, 85 percent provide a computer, laptop or tablet, and almost half a smartphone.

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However, only every tenth employee is also supported in setting up the workplace, for example with an office chair.

According to the study, however, the differences between men and women are striking: While only six percent of all male employees receive no work equipment at all, the figure is eleven percent for women.

Despite the predominantly positive assessments from the home office, the companies apparently have no plans to approve the home office on a large scale after the corona crisis.

According to a survey by the Institut der deutschen Wirtschaft (IW) in February, two thirds of the 1,200 companies surveyed do not want to enable more home office than before after the crisis.

The majority want employees to return to the offices.