Whilst the project has been running since December, the site was limited to employees of the Ministry of Digitalisation and civil servants, but from Tuesday onwards, the space will be open to employees from all ministries.
The old school is located right next to the train station in Schieren, making it easy to get there by train, bus or car, as there are plenty of parking spaces. Brand new offices have been set up on 186 square metres.
The idea is to reduce travel time for employees living further away from the city by not having them come into the Luxembourg City office, says Jean-Paul Marc, the government’s first counsellor at the Ministry of Civil Service.
“We hope that this will improve the quality of life of our employees by reducing the time they spend in traffic, and by saving time we are convinced that their work drive will improve. Of course, we also think about the environment, because fewer kilometres driven also means less CO2 emissions.”
In the last few weeks, the 20 workstations in Schieren have not been fully occupied, with only two to four people working from there each week. The building belongs to the municipality, which rents it furnished to the government, and Mayor Jean-Paul Zeimes is excited about an increase in occupancy from next week onwards, despite the positive feedback was received after the first few weeks.
“It is clear that occupancy will increase with the decision to open the doors to all government employees.”
However, the coworking space in Schieren will not be the only one in the country, emphasises Minister Serge Wilmes.
“We are currently looking for other locations, which is why we have already contacted a few municipalities in the south and east of Luxembourg. That’s where most of the agents live and quite a large number of commuters could also benefit from it. It’s a good pilot project that we believed in and that we now want to expand.”
In addition to coworking, the government also offers the option of working from home. However, the home office hours are managed by the different ministries themselves. In the Ministry of the Civil Service, for example, employees are asked to spend 40 per cent of their working hours on site. This model is also recommended to the other ministries.
Video report in Luxembourgish:
