efore the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, remote working, or home office, in Austria was a seldom utilised practice (Beno and Hvorecky, 2021). Indeed, at the medical device company MED-EL, working from home was particularly frowned upon by the CEO and on the one hand was perceived by many as a lack of trust to complete tasks without oversight (Edelmann et al., 2021). On the other hand, around one third of MED-EL’s labour force is employed in manufacturing facilities which inherently eliminates remote working (Bock-Schappelwein, 2020). However, what was to become a gradual, and yet still slight, change of heart began with the recommendation of the government to allow as many workers as possible to do so at home with the specific purpose of taking the burden off the health services (OTS, 2020). Remote working was not explicitly encouraged at MED-EL, nevertheless, a home office regulation was brought in during times of lockdown stating that not more than 50% of the workforce should be present in the office. Interestingly, Ebner et al. (2021) posit that one of the main reasons that employees in their study who continued to travel to the office during the pandemic, did so as their employer preferred them to, which was certainly the case here. Additionally, for employees with children, increased flexibility regarding core hours (or removal thereof) was granted in an attempt to maintain and maximise productivity (Hill et al., 2010). It was surprising, and also perceivably unjust, however, that this was not afforded to those without children.
In 2021 the law was amended to accommodate regular home office hours so that employees could not be disadvantaged through the provision of additional protections such as accident insurance to be valid both in the office and the home (Arbeiterkammer, 2021). This, and the desire of many employees for an improved work-life balance (Weitzer et al., 2021) led MED-EL to introduce a permanent home office regulation, albeit being initially limited to one year. This entailed a maximum of 25% of working hours to be carried out in the employee’s place of residence (i.e., no working from cafés, other people’s homes, etc.), to be spread over a maximum of two days. Certainly, although an improvement on one level, perhaps this restricted regulation may be somewhat short-sighted as it can be shown that flexibility in geographical location can indeed increase productivity and well-being of employees (Choudhury et al., 2021). This notwithstanding, there are without doubt limitations of remote working, including lack of socialisation and inadequate hardware (Ipsen et al., 2021) and business leaders would be remiss to ignore them, and yet they must also considers the wishes of their employees and how best to concentrate their efforts in a meaningful way (Beno and Hvorecky, 2021).
Do you feel that the CEO of MED-EL is unduly reticent in the allowance of remote working? Which of your experiences have shown that increased remote working has resulted in better working conditions overall? Does the availability of technology mean that remote working should be the rule, rather than the exception?
