Office, home office and hybrid working

Overview

As part of the research on the “Future of Work”, the research at the Schöller Endowed Chair deals with the topic of home office or hybrid working. Since the oil crisis in the 1970s, there has been a debate about whether there are advantages for employers and employees if the latter do their work from home. In the 1970s, the debate was mainly about commuting to work and thus saving oil (fuel).

In the last 50 years, this has evolved into a lively discussion: Technological advances (powerful PCs, the Internet, affordable laptops and tablets for mobile working, smartphones) helped create the infrastructure for working from home or another location (e.g., the downtown coffee shop). Information and communication technology is a prerequisite for this distributed working to work. So it’s no surprise that technology companies are often cited as best practices for “new work.” And also through open source software development, the technology world shows how software can be successfully developed and refined in geographically distributed teams, some of which collaborate purely online. So it’s not surprising that home office or hybrid working is increasingly on the agenda for other professional worlds or in other companies, and decision-makers are considering how to get the right mix between office work in a presence and telecommuting in a home office or other location.

The Corona pandemic has brought the issue to the attention of companies, policymakers and the general public. Without teleworking (home office), many of the challenges faced during the pandemic would not have been manageable. During this time, many companies and employees quickly learned or had to learn how collaboration in teams and projects can be successfully designed virtually. However, there were also challenges that had to be overcome.

These challenges are not new. Companies like IBM, Yahoo, Best Buy or Bank of America had started a few years ago to reduce or completely discontinue telecommuting (home office) opportunities in their companies¹. It had been noticed that too much telecommuting has a negative impact on innovation and creativity and other aspects that are important for successful collaboration.

In our research, we contribute to a better understanding of the mechanisms of why and how benefits can be realized, what causes negative consequences, and how companies and their employees can find the right mode to successfully implement hybrid working.

Our findings should contribute to a discussion in academia, politics and the general public about the importance that will be attached to the “office” as a place in the future and how the challenges of hybrid working can be well designed. These findings can ultimately be incorporated into the current deliberations on whether there should be a fundamental right to home office for employees in companies. The discussions and the results of the pre-Corona period suggest that the place “office” will continue to be of great importance. However, observations during the ongoing pandemic also show that home office and virtual working do have a positive impact on everyday working life. Depending on the task and industry, however, it depends on the right mix of office and teleworking, so no general recommendation can be made for a particular concept. The characteristics and challenges of the particular context must also be taken into account here. The current research work of the Schöller Endowed Chair is therefore dedicated to precisely these questions in order to be able to make further contributions to this discussion on how hybrid working can become or remain successful as a part of the working reality in companies.

Cooperations

Projects & Talks​

Lecture

Prof. Dr. Sven Laumer summarized the results of the chair’s research as well as initial findings and hypotheses on the post-Corona era in his lecture “Successful New Work: Theories, Empirical Studies and Hypotheses on Hybrid Working”, and these are currently being explored in greater depth in further papers and studies.