Home office: when companies restrict it

Remember that strange feeling during the pandemic of having your office at home and answering customer queries from your kitchen? This unprecedented phenomenon has since taken on unprecedented proportions. So much so that today, we read everything and its opposite on the subject. From a proven right for some to a privilege for others, its representations differ from one sector to another, as does the way companies regulate it.

Who is affected?

In Switzerland, the percentage of people working from home has been estimated to be one of the highest in Europe, with 15% of employees working from home regularly and 7.5% working mainly from home. According to our partner La Plateforme, 90% of people working in knowledge and service professions are affected.

Positive impact on productivity

Studies on the self-assessment of teleworkers' productivity are popping up all over the web. In Switzerland, these studies have been conducted on a relatively small scale, but the results tend to confirm that working from home leads to increased productivity, due to the absence of distractions from colleagues and incessant phone calls.

A recent study from 2024 confirms this trend: out of a sample of people surveyed in German-speaking Switzerland, only 9% said they were less efficient when working from home. Furthermore, the possibility of being able to work from home on a regular basis would make an employer more attractive to 41% of them – but it remains a decisive factor in their application for only 21%. On the other hand, among those entitled to regular telework, a quarter have seen these opportunities reduced recently, compared to the post-pandemic years, and nearly a fifth fear future restrictions.

Since last year, some large national companies have announced plans to restrict or abolish the right to work from home on various grounds, including the negative effects on team building if employees remain remote. This is not good news for fans of this way of working, which allows them to achieve a better work-life balance.

The response: ‘fake work’?

Press articles referring to fake work – the tendency to ‘pretend to work’ – have long been attributed to teleworking and the tricks that employees might use to appear to be working when they are actually doing other tasks. However, faced with the obligation to return to work on site, it would seem that the phenomenon could also apply to those working in person, as a silent response to this new directive, which is not universally welcomed.

Young people are said to be particularly affected, and on some online forums, the strategies employed are highly imaginative: sitting at your desk watching TV series on another channel, pretending to be on a long phone call with a concentrated look on your face, or throwing in a few intelligent phrases during meetings to pretend you are fully involved.

What does the law say?

In Switzerland, there is no established right to work from home. However, an initiative is currently underway to regulate it in order to protect employees from a potential blurring of the boundaries between work and private life. It is sometimes forgotten that working from home also encourages longer working hours, checking emails on Sundays and a pernicious feeling of obligation to be available at all times.

Angestellte Schweiz encourages this form of work if it is compatible with the company's goals – provided that the right to disconnect is guaranteed. And in the event of disagreement about a possible return to the workplace, we recommend open dialogue with management, for example through the company's staff committee. This will be more constructive in the long term than passive resistance, which can also hamper motivation and lead to quiet quitting.