"The label 'Made in Germany' is crumbling everywhere," warns the Telekom boss

Telekom boss Timotheus Höttges warns of problems for innovative strength in Germany. “Because of the great prosperity, a certain arrogance has crept in with us. But the label 'Made in Germany' is crumbling everywhere," said Höttges of the "Augsburger Allgemeine" on Monday. For example, Germany is doing worse than Greece when it comes to the digitization of public services. "And in other countries there isn't as much chaos at the airports as there is here. And unfortunately, large projects often no longer work for us.”

The Telekom boss would also like to turn back the trend towards working from home in his group. "Due to the home office, a high degree of vitality has been lost in our corporate headquarters," he said. "It's true that working from home has become indispensable, but virtually personal conversations and creativity often fall by the wayside."

"I therefore appeal to the employees: Come back to the offices. We need personal exchange.” Many employees also underestimated what they mean to their colleagues and how important personal networks are. New and young employees in particular are also dependent on working with people instead of on monitors.

However, Höttges does not want to abolish the existing home office regulations. "Of course, employees can continue to work from home if they work on something in peace," said the Telekom boss of the newspaper. “But working from home is also a privilege to a certain extent: a good 20,000 of our employees are outside with people every day. They have no chance of working from home.”

Telekom has 210,600 employees worldwide. In Germany, as of the end of June, there are around 83,400.