In this article, you can find out how much working from home is healthy and what role time tracking plays in this
The challenge: working from home without borders
Hybrid and location-flexible forms of work have long been standard. For many employees, this means more flexibility, greater job satisfaction and less stress due to commuting. But there is a noticeable downside: constant expectations of availability. The latest BAuA working time survey (2015-2023) shows that employees working from home often feel that they have to be available even after work – with clear negative consequences for health and relaxation.
What the study proves
The long-term analysis with over 32,000 survey data leads to three key findings:
- Working more from home generally improves health. However, only up to an optimum of around two to three days per week.
- Expectations of accessibility have a negative impact on health. Employees with high “telepressure” have a higher risk of sleep problems, exhaustion and burnout.
- Company working time recording reduces accessibility expectations. While employees without time tracking are under greater pressure when working from home, documented working hours actually have the opposite effect: the more days spent working from home, the lower the accessibility expectations.
Why time tracking is becoming a game changer
The results make it clear that recording working hours is far more than a legal obligation – it is an effective prevention tool. Time tracking is particularly helpful when working from home, where there are no natural boundaries such as the commute to the office or shared breaks:
- Set clear start and end points for the working day.
- Create working time transparency for employees and managers.
- health protection through better separation of work and leisure time.
In other words: time tracking creates reliability in a flexible working world.
Tips and implications for HR and managers
To promote a balance between availability and rest—not only on an individual level but also structurally—companies can make a big difference even with small but effective changes. A healthy corporate culture emerges when breaks, boundaries, and rest are not left to chance but are actively made visible.
- A possible first step: Make the culture of taking breaks visible. Set break times can be built right into the calendar—and, above all, leaders should lead by example. When a manager openly shows that their calendar includes entries for “break” or “exercise time,” they signal to the team that rest is part of the job—not a sign of weakness.
- Encourage hybrid models. Two to three days of home office per week are ideal.
- Introduce or modernize digital time recording systems. They are a measurable factor for health and motivation.
- Establish availability guidelines. Clearly communicate when employees should be available and when they should not. The BAuA’s survey on working hours also identifies this as a prerequisite for using time tracking to reduce the negative effects of constant availability.
- Sensitize managers. Anyone who constantly writes emails after work is unintentionally contributing to the “always-on” culture. And if you do end up drafting an email in the evening, most popular email programs now allow you to schedule it to be sent at a later time—for example, the next morning.
- Check-ins and check-outs at the beginning and end of meetings are also a simple yet effective tool. They create an opportunity to pause briefly, share how you’re feeling, and get a sense of the team’s atmosphere. If you’d like, you can even use the free check-in generator —it provides inspiring questions and ideas to make meetings more human.
Balance instead of stress
Working from home is a win-win situation for companies and employees if it is structured correctly. Working time recording is not a control instrument, but a protective factor: it creates healthy boundaries, reduces accessibility expectations and strengthens the resilience of teams. HR managers and managing directors should therefore use time tracking strategically to balance productivity and health.
