Making the best use of office surface areas against a backdrop of reduced presence on-site is set to become a reality within the Federal Administration. Wherever possible, with help from the Property Directorate, departments will have to change existing offices into collective spaces in which employees will be allotted interchangeable places that may vary depending on availability and the use made by each of them.

As promised by the coalition government, the federal employee representation act is set to be amended. This basically involves strengthening codetermination in areas such as working-time arrangements, transfers and secondment of staff, work/life balance, employees’ health and outsourcing assignments.

A survey, which was conducted nationwide in late 2020, provides insights into the experiences of the majority of staff who were obliged to work remotely for a number of months. There was a very high participation rate with 88% of respondents believing they are as effective working remotely as they are in their normal place of work. This figure should be correlated with the fact that 75% of those polled acknowledged that they were able to count on the support of their superiors.