Where is the home office headed? – Remote work vs. office

How common was working from home among multinational companies with large offices in Hungary before the pandemic? This is a legitimate question. Both employers and employees are aware that remote working can be beneficial for both parties. Employers can get rid of a relatively high cost factor by agreeing with a large number of their employees to work from home, while employees can spend the time they would otherwise spend commuting on more useful activities and perform their daily tasks in apparent freedom.

Home Office history

However, it cannot be said that this legal relationship between employers and employees has become widespread in Hungary. Experts explain this by saying that Hungarian corporate culture has not yet reached the level where home office can take root. At the lower and middle management levels, the primary relationships of trust that could form the basis for effective cooperation have not yet developed. This can probably also be explained by the fact that the attitudes of „I can see you, so you'd better work properly!” and „I can see and supervise your work!” are still too strong. This fact is shockingly confirmed when a newly appointed lower or middle manager suddenly undergoes a paradigm shift at the moment of their appointment, and the previously coveted home office work vanishes into thin air, immediately replaced by the principle of „Lead and rule!” In other words, a ”home office-opposing” layer has been wedged between the employer and the employee group, which is exclusively linked to the position and not to the person filling the position.

Home Office currently

In any case, the pandemic has now disrupted this situation. At the moment, due to necessity, a huge number of people who previously worked in an office environment are now working from home. As in our previous article We have already described that working from home has its legal requirements both in terms of labor and occupational safety. These regulations were tacitly annulled by the declared state of emergency, and only for this period.

Vision for the future

More precisely: the verification of personal and material conditions specified in the law has been suspended. But what will happen after the emergency period? At the moment, there is a growing assumption that the balance will shift strongly towards working from home. In other words, the influence of the „anti-home office” group, which has been shaping processes so far, will decrease significantly, precisely because this group is also working from home at the moment. Employees are proving that during the emergency period, the quality of their remote work has not decreased in the slightest. Employers can see for themselves in acute circumstances that working from home due to necessity does not compromise quality. In other words, it can be predicted that, although not to the same extent as in the current period, the use of this type of employment will increase significantly compared to the period before the emergency.

Image source: Coffee photo created by master1305 – www.freepik.com