Home office! It feels a little bit like the last semester at university. At least our colleague Patrick thinks it does. Maybe because he is young enough to remember his last semester so well 😉

Working from home is a challenge for everybody, especially for parents, thats for sure.

For me, Home Office works very well, although I am really looking forward to meet with my colleagues and business partners in personal. The current situation feels a little bit like my last semester at university when I was writing my master thesis. At that time, I was only barely at the university, most of my working time (around 95%) I spent at home writing my thesis. I had to structure my day very carefully and worked around 8 hours a day to finish the thesis before deadline. Therefore, I have already some practice in doing „Home Office“ and yes it is true what many people say about studying at university:

But that is not the only reason why home office is easy for me. In our Innovation-Team we are all used to work independently, searching for new ideas, implementing new projects without being given a strict structure. Needless to say that I do not want to work exclusively from home in the future but one/two days per week would make really sense for me (from a personal and climate protection perspective).

Of course, for me it is easy, I have enough space at home and no kids who need my attention, but there will be a time after CORONA, when kids are at school or kindergarden again. Things are also look different for people who live alone  or families who have to share a small apartment. For this group, from a social perspective, a daily physical presence at work is highly important. That shouldn’t be forgotten in the whole discussion about home office.

Whatever, regarding climate protection, it would really make sense to give employees the opportunity to work one /two days per week from home (especially those who has to commute a long way to work). Furthermore, it should be possible to cut at least 50% of physical business trips and use videoconferences instead. The digital technologies are here, they are working and we currently have the possibility to test them practically and get used to it.

Patrick Landerl