Mercedes-Benz is tightening home office rules for office workers

Dusseldorf. The car manufacturer Mercedes-Benz wants to significantly tighten its home office rules. Office workers will have to work on-site again four days a week. The DAX group announced this to its employees in Germany via email on Tuesday. The current group works agreement from 2016 stipulated that office employees could work remotely for up to five days a week.

The regulation proved to be useful during the corona pandemic. But CEO Ola Källenius and labor director Britta Seeger have been pushing for a stronger presence in the office for a long time. According to company circles, the attendance rate is now only 50 percent. Some employees actually stopped coming to the office at all. “I believe that we have lost individuals in the home office,” said Seeger in a Handelsblatt interview in December 2025. “On-site collaboration is the glue we need for our teams.”

Mercedes has had problems with declining profits and sales figures for years. The group wants to tighten its austerity program, especially in Germany. The company informed employees about this in June. The board calls this a productivity offensive.