Professional life
Study: Home Office worsens promotion opportunities
Even after the corona pandemic, many people like to work regularly from home. For employees, however, this can have a negative impact on professional career, as an investigation shows.
Many people in Germany use the opportunity to work from home. However, if you are often in the home office, you may have poorer professional advancement opportunities. This is the result of researchers from the Economic and Social Science Institute (WSI) of the Hans Böckler Foundation in a study.
In particular, childless women and men as well as fathers with a high home office content are therefore considered less committed and productive and less often recommended for jobs. The more someone works from home, the worse that is for professional advancement, says the study author Yvonne Lott. The employees often experience stigmatization that can lead to disadvantages.
In November 2023, around 5,000 employees and job seekers in Germany were interviewed in November 2023. The participants had to indicate on a scale from 0 to 10 to what extent they would recommend a fictional candidate for a specific body and how to assess the willingness and productivity of the respective person. The basis for this was a kind of profile, which contained, among other things, information about age, gender, children and the frequency of home office.
Experts advise company agreement for mobile work
The acceptance of home office is greater for mothers who look after children. Apparently they are more likely to be granted not to be present on site. According to the study, the stigmatization is particularly great in companies in which only a small part of the employees work in the home office. However, if more than half of the employees work regularly from home, it makes almost no difference when evaluating whether someone works frequently or rarely in operation.
The study authors recommend formalizing home office – for example with a general company agreement on mobile work. “An important step in this direction is the establishment of a formal right to home office,” says the scientific director of the WSI, Bettina Kohlrausch. However, the agreement must apply to all employees and not only for certain groups such as parents or mothers.
dpa
Source: Stern
