Introduction of short-time work during the pandemic 

In March 2020, my company decided to introduce short-time work as a result of the Corona crisis. Fortunately, we were only on it for 3 months and were able to recover very quickly.

My responsibility was to officially apply for short-time work for our two company headquarters in Germany and Austria, to communicate the necessary regulations within the company, to ensure that the legal framework was always followed, to check and submit required documents and calculations, and to act as a contact person for our colleagues and external bodies.

To be honest, this was one of the most challenging tasks I have ever had to deal with. I had been with the company for less than 5 months and had to really outgrow myself quickly. You don't learn these things in any training or at university, and since completely new regulations for short-time work were introduced and constantly adapted, especially in Austria, it was really time-consuming and nerve-wracking to keep track of everything and to make applications and calculations correctly. 

Interested in how we went through the process? Here are two articles for you (German only): 

https://www.hrjournal.de/wenn-das-team-selber-ueber-die-kurzarbeit-entscheidet/
https://www.karriere.at/blog/agiles-arbeiten-krise.html