• Project number: F 2543
• Institution: Federal Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (BAuA)
• Status: Ongoing Project
• Planned end: 2024-09-30

Description:

During the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic, a large proportion of the workforce worked from home to varying degrees. Larger companies in particular plan to maintain or expand home-based work (telework or working from home) in the future compared to the pre-pandemic period. The project's aim is to accompany the introduction and expansion of telework and working from home in companies in order to derive best practice models for a healthy work design.

The research questions are:

• What motives do employees and managers have to continue or expand telework and/or working from home?
• Which company regulations and measures are introduced (on the technical, organizational and personal levels) and how do these affect the workload and stress, satisfaction, productivity as well as the reconciliation of private life and work? How do teamwork, interaction and communication change in teams?
• What differences result from the specific requirements of the companies studied regarding branches, occupations or activities?

The evaluation is implemented primarily through longitudinal online surveys. In the first survey, the focus is on the experiences during the Covid-19 pandemic and the expectations for the future design of telework and working from home. In addition to employees, company representatives are also included in order to reflect possible differing expectations. In the follow-up surveys, the focus will be on the effects of the various design aspects of working from home. In addition to scientific results on the introduction of the new regulations, recommendations for action in practice are derived.