Elon Musk’s Tesla ultimatum also goes against Twitter’s current policy. (File)
Elon Musk’s demand for Tesla Inc. staff stop “phoning” and go back to the office has led the world’s richest person to the noisy debate over the future of work and proves once again that some CEOs remain deaf to employee growth. flexibility requirements.
“Everyone at Tesla has to spend at least 40 hours in the office a week,” Musk wrote in a message to electric car maker employees. This “should be where your real colleagues are, not a remote pseudo-office. If you don’t show up, we’ll assume you’ve resigned. The older you are, the more visible your presence should be.”
But that mandate may not be acceptable to some of Tesla, and it will certainly frighten Twitter Inc. employees, whom Musk wants to acquire, who have enjoyed a policy of working from anywhere during the pandemic. In today’s tight labor market, with wages rising and workers leaving at a record pace, Musk’s policy could also cost him some talent.
“Companies that require their employees to return to the office are likely to face a set of problems,” said Brian Kropp, head of human resources research at Gartner Inc., a technology consulting firm. “They will have access to a smaller talent group or will have to pay a compensation premium to force employees to return.”
More than two in three so-called knowledge workers (data scientists, engineers, graphic designers) prefer hybrid work, according to an ongoing survey of more than 10,000 white-collar workers at Future Forum. The research consortium is supported by Slack Technologies, a unit of Salesforce Inc. which offers a popular workplace communications service.
Empty offices
Only 19% of executives work from the office five days a week, compared to 35% of non-executives, Future Forum found. Those in the full-time office report higher levels of stress and anxiety, and more than half would prefer to work flexibly at least part of the time.
Tesla’s CEO doesn’t have it. In his note back to the office, Musk said Tesla would have “gone bankrupt for a long time” if he had not “lived so long in the factory so that those on the line could see me working alongside him.” “.
He also ridiculed companies with more flexible work policies, saying “when was the last time they shipped a great product? It’s been a while.”
Automakers, along with retailers and other companies with a mix of white-collar and front-line workers, follow a fine line when extending flexibility to some employees and not others.
The pandemic highlighted society’s dependence on the physical presence of blue-collar workers in hospitals, meat packing plants and grocery stores. The idea of white-collar employees logging in safely at home, while lower-paid employees risked their health to present themselves in person, has been an added source of resentment in an American economy already. stratified.
Go alone
Musk’s office tenure contrasts with some rivals in the auto industry. Ford Motor Co. adopted in April a “flexible hybrid” model where some salaried workers come mainly to work collaboratively and otherwise work from home. General Motors Co. has a “work properly” strategy that allows white-collar workers to log in remotely, instead of logging in every day. Mitsubishi Motors North America Inc. offers its corporate employees the option to work from home all the time.
Musk’s dismissal from remote work, which he dismissed as “pretending,” illustrates a common perception among bosses that remote workers are not as productive, innovative, or collaborative as those in the office.
Goldman Sachs Group Inc. CEO David Solomon last year described the remote work as an “aberration,” while Morgan Stanley CEO James Gorman expressed frustration with New Yorkers visiting the city’s restaurants but avoided their offices.
Research by Nicholas Bloom at Stanford University and other academics has shown that remote workers are just as productive, and usually more satisfied, than office workers.
The taking of Twitter
Musk’s ultimatum also goes against Twitter’s current policy, which is one of the most prominent technology companies to allow most employees to work from home on a permanent basis.
“If our employees are in a role and a situation that allows them to work from home and want to continue to do so forever, we will make it a reality,” he said on Twitter last year. Half of the world’s workers do so remotely or in a hybrid setting, 9 percent more than before the Covid-19 pandemic, according to a global study by Willis Towers Watson, a risk management company. and human resources.
“The widespread adoption of these labor agreements during the pandemic has challenged some of the myths that have accompanied remote work over the years, namely that people cannot be productive working remotely, which has fueled greater openness and acceptance, “said Brad Bell, director of Cornell University’s Center for Advanced Human Resource Studies. At Tesla, however, “of course that’s not true.”
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated channel.)