Berlin.
The finance minister has doubts about the expansion of the chancellery. Many employees are in the home office. Where the offices are even emptier.
After the end of the corona pandemic, that changed Homeoffice held in the world of work. Finance Minister Christian Lindner (FDP) used it last week to express his doubts about the chancellery’s expansion plans, since most of the employees went about their work from home anyway. A survey by this editorial team shows the extent to which civil servants in the individual ministries can actually carry out their work in a location-flexible manner.
The vast majority of federal ministries offers its employees the opportunity to work from home to an extent of 50 to 65 percent, in the Ministry of Family Affairs even 70 percent. Mobile working is also actively used. In the Ministry of the Interior, for example, 85 percent of the workforce recently used this option.
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It is extremely flexible Home office regulation in the Ministry of the Environment. “To ensure smooth service operations, an appropriate balance between mobile work and work in the office must be ensured,” said a spokeswoman for the ministry led by Steffi Lemke (Greens). However, it is common practice “to set up regular presence days in departments for flexible work in space and time in order to ensure direct exchange.”
Home office: Ministry of Education only requires one day of attendance per week
Im Federal Chancellery there are no set rules. When asked, it is said that the home office share can be discussed with the respective superiors. It is also regulated in the Ministry of Defence, whose employees have been able to apply for a “teleworking position” since 2005, which is now also available to around 400 employees of the Ministry.
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The regulation in the Federal Ministry of Education and Research is more clearly defined, albeit with a very low attendance requirement. Employees of the authority only have to appear in the office once a week, although the regulation is still pending pandemic times and is currently being renegotiated.
25 percent of the German economy regularly in the home office
The regulation in the Foreign Office led by Annalena Baerbock (Greens) is particularly strict, in which only 40 to 50 percent of the work comes from the Homeoffice may be made. In most ministries, however, the individual home office regulation can be extended if the personal circumstances of the employees require it. Certain professional groups, such as the post office or courier services, are excluded from the home office rule. In the Ministry of Justice, this affects four percent of the workforce.
In comparison, the home office regulations of the German economy are much stricter. According to a YouGov survey from August 2022, almost 30 percent of those surveyed were required by their companies to work in person. 17 percent said they could work from home once or twice a week. Only 25 percent of employees in the German economy regularly work from the Homeofficewhich was recently revealed by a company survey by the Ifo Institute.
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