“We have to get creative.”
Dusseldorf In the past few months, Nicholas Bloom has presented a few dozen top international managers with a radical proposal: they should raise the salary across the board for all employees who cannot work from home. The Stanford economist calculated that an annual bonus of five to ten percent would be a realistic compensation, based on study material. The reactions, so Bloom in an interview with the Handelsblatt: cautious.
The award-winning professor isn’t just anyone in the home office debate. Bloom and his team surveyed more than 30,000 working-age Americans about the remote trend during the pandemic. And in addition to the fact that the home office will not simply disappear again after Corona, which has meanwhile degenerated into a rush, it was noted that many do not even enjoy the privilege of being at home.
In America, Google had recently sparked discussions when it transpired that the search engine giant apparently wants to pay less of its employees in the home office. Bloom’s suggestion is, so to speak, the opposite of this: He does not want to make home office employees worse off, but rather to compensate those who do not work from home for the fact that they cannot work from home.
It’s about half of the working population, says Bloom – cashiers, waiters, nurses, educators, garbage collectors, production workers. “I often hear that this group of employees is very angry about it because they do not benefit from home office regulations and a hybrid working environment.”
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In Germany, according to the Institute for Employment Research, in April 2020 – i.e. at the summit of the first lockdown – only 43 percent of all employees in Germany could theoretically work from home. For mothers the value was 49 percent, for fathers 57 percent.
The figures illustrate another injustice that Bloom wants to at least mitigate somewhat with his proposal. Many employees who cannot work from home are women – geriatric nurses, nurses, cleaning and service staff. The work is often hard and poorly paid.
What many companies are currently doing with their hybrid work regulations is: “They give half of the working world, which is already privileged – and with a high degree of probability white and male – another advantage,” says Bloom.
In Germany it has so far been more traditional production companies where the alarm bells are ringing. For example, Bosch boss Volkmar Denner warned in the Handelsblatt in November of “tensions that endanger solidarity” when one part can work at home but the other cannot.
At Volkswagen, plant security has recently been able to handle administrative tasks such as insurance reports in the home office. Continental, Siemens and the engine manufacturer MTU, on the other hand, are trying to get away from rigid shift models and give their employees more freedom in self-organized teams.
Every now and then an hour longer, but a day off every few weeks: Such models could also bring about peace in the company, says Bloom. “We have to get creative.”
More: One part at home, the other on site: These seven tips will make hybrid meetings better