Everyone is talking about home offices. There is now plenty of information on setting up a home office and tips on how best to manage the balancing act between private interests and everyday working life. Employees are also informed that for the years 2020 and 2021, a home office allowance can be deducted in the tax return as income-related expenses or business expenses. But how can employers check the work of their employees in the home office and what control and monitoring measures are permissible?
This is the subject of the February issue of Stiftung Warentest. In the article "Surveillance in the workplace" and on the website, employees and employers can find information on the circumstances under which technical control methods can be used and when they are illegal. Stiftung Warentest is concerned with this topic because sales of software for monitoring purposes have increased in 2020. Decisive for the permissibility or impermissibility of the control is which regulations have been stipulated in the employment contract and whether an employee has concrete suspicion of working time fraud.
In principle, the same work regulations apply to working from home as apply in the office and as stipulated in the work amount. If the employer prohibits the private use of the Internet or the company e-mail box for private communication, this can be checked in the event of suspicion. Stiftung Warentest provides information on the cases in which the employer may demand access to the e-mail box or check the browser history, and on how to deal with the verification of time recording by checking the log-in data. It also explains how so-called keylogger software works and whether it is permissible, as well as monitoring via webcam recordings.
Source: Stiftung Warentest
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