Survey shows trend
Most people go to the office for three days
October 8, 2023, 10:20 a.m
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Many companies would like their employees to be more present in the office again. But five days a week among colleagues is no longer the norm. A survey shows a clear trend as to how many office days are now common.
Office workers who spend a full working week at the company are in the minority, according to a survey. Amid the home office trend, office workers in the seven office strongholds of Berlin, Düsseldorf, Frankfurt, Hamburg, Cologne, Munich and Stuttgart recently came to work an average of 3.2 days a week, shows a survey by real estate specialist Jones Lang LaSalle (JLL). This corresponds to a rate of around 63 percent for a five-day week.
Before the first Corona lockdowns in March 2020, attendance in the office averaged four days, according to the representative survey of 1,540 people available to the German Press Agency. The five-day week in the office in the seven metropolises is only practiced by around a third of employees (2020: 55 percent). Both office workers and employees of industrial companies who work in the office took part in the survey in July and August.
IT employees work at home more often
There are big differences between industries. Accordingly, the return to the office is quite pronounced in marketing, culture and media: 86 percent of the attendance level from March 2020 was achieved there – similar to the public service, education and health as well as in construction, real estate and housing. In the IT and telecommunications sector, however, the rate was 53 percent.
While regulations play a large role in office use, the location of the office and distance from home have little influence, JLL said. Only in Berlin and Frankfurt is the return rate for office workers who live in the surrounding area significantly lower than for employees from the city. Otherwise the values were similar. “This means that the effect of commuting times is less important when deciding where to work than is often assumed,” said JLL expert Helge Scheunemann.
There are other important factors for attendance. “The more employees and the more international the company, the less work is done in the office,” says the JLL survey.
Office spaces are becoming smaller
Since the pandemic, the home office has become firmly established in working life – even if some companies are now requiring their employees to do more office work again. With this trend, office properties have come under pressure. According to the Association of German Pfandbrief Banks, prices fell by almost ten percent in the second quarter. According to a recently published survey by the Ifo Institute, one in eleven companies wants to reduce office space in response to increased home working.
Many companies have already reacted. Others planned to do so in the coming years when the often long-term rental contracts expired. However, home office is by no means widespread in all industries. According to Ifo, only just under half of all jobs in Germany are compatible with working at home.