Home office and mobile working

Your employer can also determine the times at which you must be available when working from home. Many companies agree to trust-based working hours so that you can work as you wish, taking into account operational requirements and weekly working hours. The employer is responsible for ensuring compliance with the protective provisions of the Working Hours Act: you may not work for more than six hours at a time without a break. On average, you may not work more than eight hours per day, or ten hours in exceptional cases. And you must rest for eleven hours after finishing work.

This is not always possible, especially with mobile working: Another email or two in the evening or creating a presentation in the early hours of the morning are part of everyday life for many mobile workers. There is a danger of blurring the boundaries between work and leisure time.

However, your employer must monitor rest and working times as part of their duty of care. Following the latest landmark ruling by the Federal Labor Court (BAG) on 13 September 2022, the Federal Ministry of Labor has presented a reform of the Working Hours Act. In order to protect the health and safety of employees, the law stipulates that the start, end and duration of working hours must be recorded electronically on the same day.

Statutory accident insurance only applies to work-related activities when working from home. For example: If you fall down the stairs and break your arm because you had to check the internet connection in the basement, this accident would be insured. However, if you fall down the stairs because you want to make yourself a coffee, this accident would not be insured. This means that if you work at home, you bear many of the risks yourself. While going to the kitchenette or canteen at work is covered by accident insurance, going to the kitchen or toilet at home is, according to the Federal Social Court, a "personal economic activity" and therefore not insured.

Even if you injure yourself while hanging up laundry during your lunch break or preparing a meal, you must contact your private health insurance company, as the accident risk arising from the domestic living area is attributed to the insured person.

Accidents that happen on the road are insured - provided that the activity that led to the accident has a material connection to work. According to a ruling by the Federal Social Court in December 2021, the journey to work within your own four walls is also insured. Injuries that you sustain on this journey are therefore considered an accident at work. The prerequisite is that you can credibly assert that you were walking to your desk and not to breakfast. As the circumstances of accidents at work can vary greatly, they are usually decided on a case-by-case basis.

Important: The responsibility for data protection lies with the company itself. Software and hardware should be provided entirely by the employer, used only for business purposes and, of course, only by the employee. A secure LAN connection is always preferable to an open WLAN. A VPN connection is required for data transfer, and it is better not to use USB sticks or local hard disks for data storage, but to store the data on the company server. If storing data on insecure media cannot be avoided, it should at least be encrypted.
When working on the move, data protection may be more difficult to guarantee, because when working on the train or in a café, for example, the screen may be visible to strangers or telephone conversations may be overheard.