Sunday May 16, 2021
First Spotify, now the Swabians
Up to twelve days of mobile work at Porsche
Working models at Porsche are becoming a lot more flexible. Even after the pandemic, employees will be able to do their job from locations of their choice for almost two and a half full working weeks per month – if they are not one of the excluded groups.
The sports car manufacturer Porsche is significantly changing its working environment and giving employees more opportunities for mobile work. In the future it will be possible to work mobile on up to twelve days a month, said a spokesman for the Stuttgart-based automobile company. The works council and management had come to an agreement accordingly, he confirmed in a report in the “Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung”.
“It is important to us that we have highly motivated employees,” said Andreas Haffner, Porsche’s Chief Human Resources Officer, from FAZ. “Every employee can work when, where and how they want – of course always within the framework of the operational and legal agreements and as long as the work result is right. They can sit in the holiday home in Upper Bavaria or in the café next door, we don’t really care.” A company agreement regulates the project. With the start of mobile work, Porsche employees are to receive a technology package, including a large screen.
Production and catering excluded
Some areas, especially in production and gastronomy, are excluded from the new agreement, said Porsche. “But wherever it is possible, it should also be used,” said a spokesman. The agreement was concluded on May 1st. Until at least the end of June, Porsche employees worked at home five days a week anyway, following an exception due to the pandemic.
As a result, the sports car manufacturer will also change its office world. Initially, the office space is to be reduced by around a fifth. By the year 2025, Porsche only wants to have a classic desk for 60 percent of office employees and only offer temporary workplaces, as Haffner said. According to the FAZ, the works agreement currently only applies to Porsche AG with around 22,000 employees. Negotiations are still going on for the subsidiaries, including the plant in Leipzig.
Porsche is not the first company to rethink its working models in the wake of the Covid19 pandemic. Music streaming market leader Spotify announced in February that employees would not necessarily have to return to the office after the end of the corona pandemic. The company based in Sweden calls its concept “work from anywhere”. According to the new company policy, Spotify employees should be able to work in the office or at home or alternately in both locations from summer. They make the decision together with their superiors.
However, the promotion of flexible and mobile working is not always well received. Recently announced considerations at the automobile manufacturer Opel, even after the end of the corona pandemic, to let its employees mainly work in the home office and to cut a large part of the existing individual workplaces, met with sharp criticism from unionists.
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