DOMOTEX WORKING FROM HOME WE’VE BEEN BRED ON AN
IDEA THAT WORK HAPPENS IN OFFICES AND CUBICLES. NO WONDER MOST EMPLOYED INSIDE THAT MODEL HAVEN’T CONSIDERED OTHER OPTIONS
Jason Fried | Rework
Luxembourg and Ireland take a similar approach, both having home working shares of over 20 per cent. Other countries, such as Poland, have become meccas for a growing band of nomadic workers, freed from geographical commitments and keen to fi nd somewhere to live that off ers the best home-working experience. Krakow, for example, is popular because it has WiFi speeds which eclipse continental averages by 23 per cent, meaning that people can stay connected easier despite being hundreds of miles away. By contrast, this applies to hardly anyone in Eastern Europe and it’s
practically unknown in Bulgaria and Romania where the share is just 1.2% and 2.5%. Germany, where the Government has strict home offi ce-rules for anyone using their own space for work, nevertheless experienced a country-wide pandemic-related boom in fl exibility with an estimated one in two forced to work from home by their employer with or without complying at one stage, a trend fuelled by major employers such as Microsoft and supported by the likes of Mindspace and Satellite Offi ce helping freelancers fi nd aff ordable co-working spaces.
HOW FIRMS MOVED QUICKLY TO ADAPT Other software giants such as IBM and SAP, did the same. The DAX- listed SAP group, quickly began pilot schemes in London, Sydney and Zurich and sent an e-mail to roughly 100,000 employees in June, promising a “100 per cent fl exible and trust-based workplace as the norm, not the exception”, something supported by 94 per cent of the staff , according to Chief Marketing and Solutions Offi cer Julia White. She emphasised that the new approach was a major advantage when recruiting new talent. She was the evidence of that. In March, she had actually been recruited by Walldorf-headquartered fi rm from Microsoft in a process that took place entirely remotely. It was only
FACT Krakow in Poland has emerged as a
prime example of a home working capital, partly because of its WiFi speeds
QUO TE
at the end of May that she travelled to southwestern Germany for the fi rst time to meet her fellow board members and the CEO. I spoke to several leading industrial names this summer who had all made arrangements for staff
to
relocate to their homes. Some had been keen to point out how eff ectively that had been embraced. I can recall Nikolaus Krueger, Head of Sales at Switzerland’s Endress +Hauser telling me productivity had been positively aff ected now people were no longer commuting and offi ces had morphed into meeting and social spaces. A survey by the German university, TU Darmstadt, looked at the opportunities and risks of expanding work-from-home schemes, interviewing 952 offi ce staff from across Germany with one surprise fi nding. Andreas Pfnür, Head of the Real
Estate Management explained: “How people live says a lot about whether they can work successfully from home. Living conditions are more meaningful than the type of job or the number of children. We didn’t expect that. The more satisfi ed survey participants were with their living situation — the location and the layout of their home — the more satisfi ed and productive they were with remote working.” And he warned: “Home offi ce
could pave the way for a two-tier society. “On the one hand, there are employees with attractive jobs
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DOMOTEX 2022
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