The coronavirus crisis has changed the working lives of many people. An estimated 40 percent of Germans worked from home during lockdown. The transition to working from home was often improvised. However, if working within your own four walls is to run smoothly, as many employers and employees would like, legal regulations must be observed.
Setting up teleworking stations entails considerable additional costs and effort for employers, explain the experts at Larbig & Mortag Immobilien in Cologne.
During the coronavirus lockdown, many employees were sent home to work from their homes overnight and worked from their kitchen tables or sofas for weeks on end. Many were surprised at how well this worked in many cases. Quite a few employees want to continue working from home at least part of the time even after the restrictions are eased. However, there are a number of things to consider here. A teleworking workplace that has to comply with workplace regulations has little in common with the spontaneous move brought about by the crisis, where everyone turned a blind eye.
First, a distinction must be made between teleworking and mobile working; the two terms are often used interchangeably. In the case of telework, the employer must meet the same workplace requirements as in the office. "This means that they must provide furniture and technology such as a desk, office chair, PC, and work equipment such as printers, paper, etc. Under certain circumstances, additional flat rates can be agreed for the use of telephone and internet," explains Uwe Mortag, managing partner of Larbig & Mortag Immobilien.
Employers are legally obliged to protect the health of their employees. This means that they should check in advance whether the employee's home office meets the necessary requirements. These include, for example, that there is sufficient daylight and that the room is of a minimum size. At the same time, employees enjoy domestic authority at home. "This means that they do not have to let their superiors in. Therefore, they should ensure that they have the right to enter their employees' work areas," advises real estate expert Mortag.
Another source of conflict can be the recording of working hours. Last year, the European Court of Justice issued a landmark ruling that requires supervisors to keep accurate records of working hours. This means that they must require their employees working from home to log their working hours. While it is easy to see when employees arrive, leave, take breaks, etc. in the office, this is difficult to check remotely. According to a ruling by the Federal Labor Court, so-called keyloggers, which log user input on the computer and show that the user was working, may only be used in justified cases. It goes without saying that data security must also be observed when working from home. If the teleworker has taken sensitive documents home with them, these must be locked away after work. It must also be clarified that employees working at their home desks carry out the same firewall updates for their computers as those carried out for the computers in the office. Some companies get around this by not allowing work involving sensitive data to be carried out outside the office.
In contrast to teleworking, mobile working allows employees to do their jobs anywhere, i.e., in the park, a hotel, or a café. There are hardly any legal regulations governing this. Ultimately, this is because it is intended for temporary periods (e.g., business trips) and not for spending an entire working day on the train or in a café.
A new teleworking workplace costs around $3,000 to $5,000 per employee
If you compare the cost of equipping a teleworking workplace with that of an existing office workplace, the additional expenses become apparent. The employer must budget around €3,000 to €5,000 per teleworking workplace for furniture and technology. In most cases, the office space is already equipped with this technology. Now, one could argue that, on the other hand, office space could be reduced by having employees who occasionally work remotely share a desk in the office. If you calculate approximately 12 to 15 square meters of office space per employee and fewer employees come into the office each day, you could sublet the surplus space. This is only advisable if entire rooms or floors can be separated and, especially in times of pandemic, there is no mixing of employees from different companies. In addition, permanent subletting or subleasing of office space could become a problem in the future, namely if employees working from home do not achieve the desired productivity or intensive exchange with colleagues, or simply want to return to the office. In most cases, these spaces are leased on a long-term basis. Employers cannot quickly reclaim it. However, one option is to partially offset the costs of teleworking by reducing the amount of space rented.
Pay attention to flexibility in rental agreements and construction
"Anyone currently looking for office space should pay attention to flexibility, on the one hand in terms of lease agreement adjustments such as shorter terms, extension options, and maximum freedom in subletting," Mortag advises. On the other hand, tenants should check the structural flexibility to ensure that floor plans can be adapted and small offices can be separated and dismantled again at reasonable cost.
Ultimately, flexible working hours and locations are important for attracting and retaining employees. Personal interaction in the office, which often leads to creative solutions and new ideas, whether at the coffee machine, the printer, the copier, or during team meetings, remains vitally important in a knowledge-based society. Video conferencing can hardly replace this.
Not every employee should be able to work however they want
"We would also like to point out that employees get used to working from home too quickly. This can affect their availability. The flow of information and creative exchange cannot be maintained as well for employees working from home as for those in the office. The employer has a duty of care and protection," explains Mortag.
In the future, companies would be well advised to create a hybrid workplace design. This means that employees who want to work from home part of the time will be given the opportunity to do so. The frequency with which they are allowed to work from home, the tasks they can perform there, and the occasions on which they should come to the office will be specified. The others can continue to work in the office as usual. Such concepts did not emerge with Covid-19, but have been discussed more frequently since the outbreak of the pandemic.
