“That doesn't go together”: Beer garden and pub open, office still closed

The "emergency brake" for fighting pandemics is out of order due to the sharp drop in the number of infections, and many restrictions on public life have been removed.

But the legal requirement for companies to relocate work as far as possible to the homes of their employees continues to apply for the time being.

Dietrich Creutzburg

Business correspondent in Berlin.

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The president of the chemical employers, Kai Beckmann, has little understanding for this: “People go to the beer garden in the evening, but working in the office during the day should be forbidden? It doesn't fit together, "he told the FAZ." It's time to give responsibility for work and operational processes back to those who take them best: companies, employees and social partners. "

Political insistence on the obligation to work from home is also contradictory because company doctors are supposed to take on their role as a further pillar of the vaccination campaign these days.

“Vaccination in companies is a low-threshold offer that can be used to win over people who might not have made an effort in private,” emphasized the President of the Federal Chemicals Employers' Association (BAVC), which represents 1900 companies in the chemical and pharmaceutical industry .

Leading companies in terms of home office at the same time does not fit in with this.

The role of the social partners is neglected

Similar to the SPD candidate for Chancellor Olaf Scholz, the Greens are also calling for the provisions of the Infection Protection Act to be retained.

The law stipulates the stricter home office requirement that has been in force since the peak of the third wave of infections until at least the end of June - regardless of how many infections there are.

The fight against the pandemic should not be “jeopardized” with a “premature expiry” of the regulations, warned the Green politician Beate Müller-Gemmeke.

She also accused the federal government of failing to enforce a legal right to work from home for employees.

The chemical employers see it differently.

It “simply misses the reality if it is pretended that the home office is systematically prevented by employers, while on the other hand all employees allegedly prefer to work at home than in the office,” says Beckmann.

In addition, the role of the social partners is neglected.

"Together with the IG BCE union, we did pioneering work before the pandemic and, with the 'Modern Working World' collective agreement, set a good framework that takes the interests of companies and employees into account."

"If people only work at home, it costs creativity in the long run"

Beckmann has also shown that he does not wait for political tutoring with his work as a member of the management team of the pharmaceutical company Merck in Darmstadt: There he launched a flexible model in 2012 that gives employees new scope in their daily choice of work location and working hours gave - also with the aim of improving the work-life balance. How groundbreaking this was became all the more clear in the pandemic: "We didn't have to try switching to home office and digital work organization under emergency conditions."

One of the experiences with this, however, is that personal exchange in the company remains indispensable.

“If people only work at home, it costs creativity in the long run,” he emphasizes.

"Innovative ideas and solutions then do not arise to the extent that companies need them for successful development."

Establishing the exact rules for this could not be the task of the legislature, but there was a need for reform.

Because digitization brings up many new issues "to which the existing legal framework no longer fits because it is still based on a world of uniform mass production like in the 19th or 20th century".

Make better use of the potential of digitization

For example the statutory working time regulations: “Of course, even in the digital age, there must be effective protection for employees against overload,” emphasizes Beckmann.

"But anyone who still believes that the only suitable instrument for this is the time clock is stuck in old patterns."

In fact, effective occupational health and safety in the digital world depends much more on good work organization and good leadership than just measuring hours and minutes.

"These are aspects that I have been missing in the political debate about home office, legal claims and bans so far."

In the end, it is a matter of using the potential of digitization in such a way that added value is created for all sides - innovation, more productivity and a better work-life balance. "A set of rules that turns mobile working into a bureaucratic and cost factor for companies would slow it down and not help anyone," warns Beckmann.