Deutsche Bahn: Three days of office duty: Railway employees approach their board of directors on the intranet

Bahn boss Palla wants to force employees to be present, but the company wants to reduce office space. The workforce sees this as more than just a contradiction - and is sometimes upset.

Berlin, Düsseldorf. Wednesday, October 7th, 7 a.m. A letter from the company's board of directors appears on DB Planet, Deutsche Bahn's intranet, under the heading “Together on site”. Anyone who can work remotely at Deutsche Bahn should come to the office regularly three days a week in the future. Bahn boss Evelyn Palla and her five board colleagues justify this with the restructuring of the group. “Presence strengthens cooperation and cohesion.”

Two hours later, the post has 125 comments. “There is still no evidence of a positive correlation between office presence and productivity,” writes one employee. Another calculates his future working day: “Instead of working with colleagues in video conferences, we first drive to the open-plan office with a 60 percent punctual means of transport to do video conferences there all day long.”

Other employees warn of unintended consequences. “I believe that this will backfire and exactly the opposite of what is desired will happen,” writes one. Productivity will fall, sickness and fluctuation will increase. In his team, colleagues were “putting massive obstacles in their way”. He has “already heard voices willing to change”.

This question does not apply to two out of three DB employees anyway, said a DB spokeswoman when asked by the Handelsblatt. They have always kept the railway business running for our customers on site every day. “More presence promotes better collaboration, faster exchange of knowledge and team spirit.” This is particularly important in times when “we are restructuring the group and building an efficient railway”.

Fewer offices, higher attendance requirements

Palla has been at the helm of the railway since October 1, 2025. “A better railway needs a consistent restart and a radical rethinking at all levels,” she said in December. This includes “a consistent decentralization of tasks and more entrepreneurial activity”. An employee who misses the evidence of more productivity is now holding it against her. “This micromanagement contradicts the premise of taking responsibility across the board.”

In September, Palla announced that it would give up at least a fifth of the office space nationwide. The letter does not say how more employees should work on more days in less space.

The individual group companies should implement the rule by the end of 2027 at the latest. They want to review existing agreements “while preserving the participation rights of the interest groups”. At DB Regio, which Palla led before she moved to the top of the group, the attendance requirement already applies.

Employees mock their own advertising

The railway boss’s new strategy also includes a “new corporate culture”. Things have been simmering in the workforce for weeks and Palla's new “performance culture” is not well received by many, Handelsblatt learned from conversations with employees.

There was a similarly heated debate in DB Planet three weeks ago. At the end of August, head of communications Jens-Oliver Voß presented the railway's new brand identity in DB Planet. The red DB pulse, named “Best of the Best” at the Red Dot Design Award in 2021, is now replaced by a bar pattern called “threshold”. Voß argued that a uniform design “dramatically reduces costs”.

The employees objected. “In my opinion, this doesn’t reduce any costs at all, it just causes enormous costs and effort,” wrote one. “It seems as if we at DB have nothing else to do other than tinker with our brand design.”

In hundreds of comments, employees held up a mirror to their bosses. The railway has reported 386 million euros for advertising and sales promotion in the past three years. This year it allocated its budgets for brand and product communication, social media and PR to five agencies. Since 2020, the group and its agencies have won at least 60 communications and advertising awards, most of them in 2025. In that year, 60.1 percent of long-distance trains reached their destination on time.

“We need functioning trains, NOT another redesign,” said one employee, explaining what he thought was most important. Another advised: “The best marketing for a company is to convince with performance.”

Employees suspect that the new plans for workplace presence are linked to the planned job cuts. One writes: “A rogue who sees any connection with forced job cuts.”

As the Handelsblatt learned from rail circles, the first models for partial retirement and severance payments were presented at the end of September. The aim is to create a “competitive ratio of administrative staff to operational staff”.

A comment under Wednesday's letter focuses on the timing. The topic has been circulating within the group for weeks, it says. However, the board only published the letter after the end of the employee survey. One employee wrote: “A rogue who thinks evil.”