Construction costs are currently skyrocketing

Just to clarify, before someone approaches the matter emotionally instead of rationally again, I myself have HO and personally think it's good. But it's not a given and does awaken a feeling of disadvantage in some employees. That it is not the case in your company is nice. With us, it looks quite different.

I believe the misunderstanding or your argument is solely based on the fact that you have understanding for your employer and that the solution to the "problem" of envy might be the abolition of the home office. Oetti rather takes the view that this envy problem would not be solved but masked by that. We have similar debates within our corporation regarding company cars. There are some colleagues who really travel a lot but do not receive a company car because they are simply not in sales or not managers. Some colleagues feel quite disadvantaged because of that.

There are some colleagues who are really on the road a lot but do not get a company car because they are simply not in sales or not in a leadership position. Some colleagues feel quite disadvantaged because of that.

The private use of a company car is always part of the salary. I also had to negotiate that for myself. My boss drives a Daimler and I don’t feel disadvantaged because of that either. Also, not everyone has a private office like I do. We are not in socialism and status always comes with privileges.

The solidarity you demand is therefore quite one-sided and not based on reciprocity at all.

I don’t see it that way, because I can only look at it from the perspective of my workplace. We have no one in the warehouse who gets anything paid, since the tasks are neither difficult nor hazardous. And it’s not primarily about you or your workplace, as I said, I just wanted to show that not everything that glitters is gold.

It often brings me absolutely nothing when I’m in the office and then meet with the others via Zoom from there. Our team is spread all over Bavaria and the externals throughout Germany. On-site appointments are kept to a minimum because of the costs.

You also have very different conditions than we do, for example, we are a 45-person company, of whom 42 can work from home, 3 cannot because of their workplace. But it also happens, for example, that someone can do parts of their tasks at home and hands over the parts that must be done on site to the colleagues who are there anyway. I think it’s really great if it works for you like that.

The labor market has changed over the past years from an employer’s market to an employee’s market. This development will continue to gain momentum with the coming retirement wave of the boomers. If you as an employer want to have good people, you have to offer them something. Besides monetary incentives, these can also be working conditions like working from home, flexible hours, etc. If I have no pressure to innovate and accept that I won’t get the best people from the market, then I put a fruit basket in the kitchen once a week and try to carry on as for the last 20 years.

We have great benefits, the only thing that simply doesn’t run smoothly is the issue of working from home.

Our current managing director is retiring in June 2024; he agreed to working from home three years ago due to Corona. Since April, we have a second managing director who will replace the first one. He is 48 and wants to cancel the works agreement because he feels there is no control mechanism! Which I also find old-fashioned, by the way.

We had a meeting this morning and he said, “If people are as productive working from home as they claim, they would be saving time and should therefore reduce their weekly working hours as a reaction. People are paid for 39 hours and might only work 34 hours at home”… or he said, “Then I’d rather have them sitting here than have them hanging out laundry, showering, or loading the dishwasher at home.”

It’s a difficult topic, at least with us!

I believe the misunderstanding or your dispute is solely based on the fact that you have sympathy for your employer and the solution to the "problem" could be envy in the abolition of the home office. Oetti rather holds the view that the envy problem is not solved by this, but concealed.

Maybe, but unfortunately there doesn't seem to be the ultimate solution :)

We had a meeting this morning and he said, "If people in remote work are as productive as they claim, then they save time and should respond by reducing their weekly working hours. People are paid for 39 hours and then potentially only work 34 hours in remote work" .. or he said, "then I'd rather have them sit here than have them hang their laundry, shower, or load the dishwasher at home"..

He did say it, old-fashioned management. But the CEO will understand it eventually. Commuting distance etc. is not the employer's problem, but especially as a medium-sized company, finding good people is a problem again. And eventually, even the last one will realize that.

But it happens, for example, that someone can do parts of their tasks from HO and hand over the parts that have to be done on site to the colleagues who are already on site anyway.

From my point of view, that simply wouldn’t be okay without further changes. So either they are not allowed to just hand over the tasks, or if it still makes sense from a process perspective, then you can do it this way, but accordingly the warehouse workers must either be better paid or get reinforcement.

then they save time

Paid for 39 hours and then maybe only work 34 hours from HO

Well, it is not called the time-cost-quality triangle for nothing. Usually, the error rate will decrease first, or things that were left undone will be taken care of. If more tasks come in, more/faster work will be done; if not, something is actually wrong, but one would have to look at it individually. The problem is that such managers usually don’t look more closely but only look for arguments for their preconceived opinion.

then I'd rather have them sitting here instead of hanging their laundry at home, showering, or unloading the dishwasher

QED. Instead of thinking up new tasks, they should rather sit around dumbly. Sorry, but your boss-to-be is a bad manager.

a difficult topic, at least for us

More like a difficult boss, unfortunately not just for you.