"Co-determination a lever for the good home office"

"Home office work empowers some and gives them more freedom, but it also highlights existing and emerging divisions," sums up Schroeder, who heads the department of "Political System of the FRG" at the University of Kassel. In a policy paper, he specifically proposes a "Good Hybrid Work Network" for Hesse as a support infrastructure for the transformation of the world of work.

Economic support for digitization should not be limited to technologies, business models and value chains, but should also focus on the interests of employees, especially in small and medium-sized enterprises. The goal must be to ensure social interaction among employees, elements of occupational health and safety, and access to education and training, social and digital infrastructure, even in the home office. For the "Arbeitsweltberichterstattung Hessen" project, the Kassel-based political scientist had evaluated a good dozen scientific studies as well as the DGB's "Gute Arbeit" index for Hesse. This is a regular representative survey of employees, which for the first time provides precise data for the state of Hesse with an additional survey.

The results of the surveys evaluated were in part surprising: for example, although home office expanded significantly in quantitative terms due to the corona effects, on the other hand, only 10 percent of "home workers" were working in a home office for the first time. "So working at home is not a Corona-specific phenomenon, but a feature of a profound change in the world of work," Schroeder commented. Younger people were less likely to work from home, according to the DGB index, and the cohort between 26 and 35 is even the one with the lowest rate (16%). Above all, however, there is a division between people who are able to work from home and can afford to do so, and others who do not have access to the necessary work equipment and premises at home, or for whom the path to a home office tends to be blocked. The second group included an above-average number of migrants and, for a number of different reasons, women.

"What is striking is that companies with strong employee co-determination are more successful in organizing home offices," Schroeder notes. "So one lever to good work is to strengthen co-determination institutions. This includes, in particular, securing digital access rights for works councils and trade unions." In order to promote positive effects such as job satisfaction and productivity, regulations on occupational health and safety, time recording, data and insurance protection, tax deductibility and co-determination at the workplace should be taken into account, he said.

The policy paper can be found here: https://www.uni-kassel.de/fb05/i3

More information on the "Arbeitsweltberichterstattung Hessen" can be found here: https://www.uni-kassel.de/fb05/fachgruppen-und-institute/politikwissenschaft/fachgebiete/politisches-system-der-brd-staatlichkeit-im-wandel/forschung/arbeitsweltberichterstattung-hessen

Contact details:

Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Schroeder
University of Kassel
Department of Social Sciences
Department of Political System of the Federal Republic/Statehood in Transition
Tel.: 0561-804-3096
Mail: wolfgang.schroeder[at]uni-kassel[dot]de