Working from home can lead to more stress and thus become a health hazard. This emerges from a study published on Monday by the German Trade Union Confederation (DGB). Accordingly, 28 percent of home workers often do unpaid overtime.
In addition, supervisors expect every third person to be available outside of normal working hours, for example on their mobile phone, as the study “Work of the future in the ‘New Normal’? Dissolution of boundaries and relaxation in digital and mobile work”. The “Süddeutsche Zeitung” first reported on the study.
According to the information, home workers work much more often in the evening until 11 p.m. and start again early. 46 percent shorten the break – or skip it altogether. 47 percent of home workers stated that they were often unable to switch off properly in their free time. According to the authors of the study, all of these values are significantly higher than for employees who mostly or always work in the company.
According to the study, working at unlimited times is closely related to the workload in the home office: “If the work often has to be done under time pressure, the proportion of employees with evening work, unpaid overtime and constant availability increases significantly.”
If, on the other hand, there are company agreements on location-flexible working, the proportion of those who reduce rest times is only half as high as without corresponding regulations, according to the study.
