Real Estate Factors and their Effects on Work From Home Success – An Empirical Study for Germany

The way work is physically organized in a society is subject to constant change. While life and work took place in one place before industrialization (First Place), work shifted to the office with a growing proportion of knowledge-intensive activities (Second Place). Due to the Corona-Pandemic, work for many knowledge workers shifted back home quickly. Before COVID-19 work from home was limited to individual cases or to a few days. While some studies have looked at the office real estate factors influencing work success, there are hardly any studies analyzing real estate factors and their effects on work success when working from home. The contact restrictions since March 2020 now allow large-scale examinations of how knowledge workers work from home. The aim of the paper is to identify dependency structures between real estate factors and success factors in working from home. Specifically, the direction and size of the effects of the individual real estate factors on satisfaction and productivity in working from home are quantified. Based on a literature research, important real estate related factors are identified that influence the success of work in general. This is followed by a quantitative survey of knowledge workers in Germany who have already gained experience in working from home. Multivariate analyzes are carried out, focusing on satisfaction and productivity as success factors for work from home. First results, by using mean value comparisons and correlation analyzes, suggest that property-related factors of the home in particular are closely related to the success in working from home. While the office workplace is explicitly developed for the purpose of efficient work, work from home takes place in a location that is not designed for this purpose. The study provides important implications on how future housing should be planned and designed to make working from home sustainable.