Work from Anywhere – Empirical Study of the Work Situation of Employees

The world of work is changing at a rapid pace

With the first lockdown of the corona pandemic, the home office phenomenon moved into the public eye. In 2020, researchers at the Department of Real Estate Management and Construction Management at TU Darmstadt began a broad survey of office workers in Germany with the support of the Department of Marketing and Human Resource Management.

How and where do people work at home? How do employees perceive working at home? How productive is work in the home office, and what determines its success?

The research team investigated these questions. The longitudinal study ran in three waves in June, August and October 2020. Up to 952 employees participated in the three survey waves, and the panel's composition represents office employees in Germany.

More on the first part of the study and its results reports can be found here .

Some involuntary lockdown phases and several years later, it is of great scientific and social relevance to investigate the topic of working from home again in 2023. In January 2023, the FG Real Estate and Construction Management research team will explore in a second part of the study which challenges and successes people face today when working from home and what the working world of tomorrow might look like.

In the second part of the study, 1,500 employees in Germany will be surveyed about their work situation at home and in other locations, such as the office or coworking spaces.

The research project aims to measure the success of the work-from-home away-from-home pandemic. Based on the collected data, scientifically sound insights into the status quo can be gained, urgently needed in research and practice to answer essential questions of future office development. With the results' help, the TU Darmstadt scientists will create implications for employers, politics, the real estate industry and urban planning.

More about the second part of the study can be foundhere .