Volkswagen Group is extending work-from-home flexibility, with employees able to pick which four or five days a month they want to spend at the office.
Since 2016, workers at the German automotive giant have enjoyed some of the more elastic remote working arrangements, allowing people to do their jobs away from the office for as many as four days a week. Once pandemic restrictions lift, employees can ask to group the remaining days into blocks, VW said.
“The future of work at Volkswagen will be hybrid,” Gunnar Kilian, the board member in charge of personnel, said in a statement. “The extension creates a balance between ‘mobile work’ and the essential interaction between colleagues at the office as we move through the industry’s transformation.”
VW employs about 100,000 people in Germany. About half of these workers have logged on from home since measures to contain the spread of the coronavirus were introduced. The company eased some of the restrictions in mid-September, making a return to the office an option.
The new rules have been agreed on by the company and VW’s unions.
Only employees whose jobs can reasonably be performed remotely can work from home, VW said. The company runs the world’s biggest car factory at its headquarters in Wolfsburg, which produces out vehicles such as the Golf hatchback and Tiguan SUV.
