Home office at Leoni: it’s all about flexibility
Leoni underpins its reputation as an attractive following with new, liberal rules for mobile working
Employer and employee representatives jointly drafted a corresponding collective bargaining agreement and have now signed it. Since 1 July 2022, this agreement replaces and extends the previously temporary provision that was introduced against the backdrop of the coronavirus pandemic. “Flexible solutions to mobile working are simply a must these days for Leoni to be an attractive employer. It is therefore clear that we will also be living by this in future,” said Dr Ursula Biernert, CHRO and Labour Director of Leoni AG.
Mark Dischner, Chair of the General Works Council, also expressed satisfaction: “We have reached a strong, forward-looking agreement. Not least the past few months have shown how well the offer for employees at our sites in Germany was accepted and appreciated – for everyone’s benefit.”
Up to five days a week possible
Specifically, the collective bargaining agreement provides, among other things, that mobile working is under certain conditions possible on up to five working days per week. To compare: the old arrangement from pre-coronavirus days provided for just one day of working from home as the standard model. The Company will provide the technical equipment needed to perform jobs at the mobile workplace, while the employee provides all other facilities required.
Whether and to what extent this offer will be accepted in individual cases will be a mutual, voluntary decision agreed unbureaucratically and directly between staff member and manager. “From our experience of the past few months we know that particularly hybrid variations are popular, such as two days in the office and three in the home office,” said Chris Wieseckel, lead negotiator on the employer side. “We have cleared the way for this together with the employee representatives.”
One precondition for mobile working is that the respective employee’s job permits working outside the Company’s workplace without compromising operations, and furthermore that productivity as well as work quality are not compromised. “If otherwise all conditions are met from both a legal and technical perspective, the mobile workplace does not have to be the employee’s own study either,” General Works Council chairman Mark Dischner emphasized. “It might sometimes also be the café in the local park; why not?”