Elon Musk is right. The home office, as we established it in Corona times, should be abolished again. What the Tesla boss, as a free spirit, formulates in a particularly extreme way for his company must be adapted for the average employee.
For companies like Tesla, the total rejection of the home office is correct – at least temporarily – for the average clerk it should continue to be possible to work from home.
During the corona pandemic, we learned that the absolute obligation to be present was nonsense. But just as mobile working was promoted much too sluggishly, we are currently sleeping through the return. The office as a social place is extremely important. A purely digital exchange prevents interpersonal interactions and chance encounters.
In addition: Before Covid, the debate about the delimitation of work was carried out too doggedly, especially by mindfulness fanatics, but this topic is currently not sufficiently present in the discourse. It just leads to problems when the workplace is at the same time the home.
The author often hears the question from colleagues: “Have you stayed here?!”
For German employees, the issue of working from home is clear: only five percent want to work in the office all the time in the future, a third want to stay completely at home, and the vast majority prefer a mixture of presence and absence. This is the result of a current labor market study by the consulting firm PwC.
The reasons for that are obvious. Many people have to commute to the office for a long time every day, so working from home saves valuable time. You can wait at home for the craftsman or a delivery without having to take a whole day off.
And many workplaces don’t come close to their own four walls in terms of aesthetics. If you haven’t been in the office for a few days, you even look forward to colleagues who, administered as a daily dose, are simply too heavy.
Such change models are possible more often than many assume: Worldwide, 54 percent of employed professionals can already work from anywhere. The home office makes us more flexible in everyday life. It means more freedom. We shouldn’t let them take us anymore.
The author ticks like the majority: technically speaking, he is a flexitarian.
