Tesla CEO Elon Musk recently demanded that all Tesla staff return to the office full-time, according to an email sent to executive staff that was leaked to social media. In the email, Musk said workers who do not want to take office should “pretend they work elsewhere.”
However, this kind of authoritarian, top-down approach is rooted in mistrust and false assumptions that goes against best practices in office management and psychology. He speaks of an illusion of control that would undermine the productivity, commitment, innovation, retention, and hiring of Tesla employees.
One of Musk’s false assumptions involves the idea that employees “pretend” to work from home. In fact, research using both surveys and behavioral monitoring since the early days of the pandemic has shown that remote work has led to increased productivity. More recently, academics have shown a further increase in productivity in remote work, from 5% in the summer of 2020 to 9% in May 2022. This is due to the fact that companies and employees grew better. working from home.
Still, despite this readily available evidence, Musk wrote in another leaked email that those working remotely “are calling him.” He emphasizes the importance of being visible and gives as an example his own notoriously long working day.
Research using both surveys and behavioral monitoring from the early days of the pandemic has shown that remote work has led to increased productivity.
This focus on office visibility speaks to a highly traditional leadership mentality sustained by the illusion of control. This cognitive bias describes the tendency of our mind to overestimate the extent to which we control external events.
It is especially common in authoritarian executives who want to control their employees. They believe that having employees in the office guarantees productivity.
In fact, research shows that employees in the office work much less than the full eight hours a day. In fact, they spend between 36 and 39 percent of their time working. The rest, according to these studies, is for other activities: consulting social media, reading news websites, chatting with colleagues about non-work topics, making non-work calls, and even looking for other jobs.
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Musk’s desire for control is not simply emphatically unreal. It also goes directly against what we know is fundamental to the productivity, commitment, and innovation of information workers: the desire for autonomy.
Studies show that we do our best work through intrinsic motivation, which involves autonomy and control over our work as a key driver of effectiveness. Employees are more engaged, happy and productive when they have autonomy. A key component of autonomy in the post-pandemic environment is to give workers flexibility and self-control where and when they work, rather than trying to get them into the “normal” before the pandemic. And while Musk claims that forcing employees to come to the office under the threat of layoffs will help Tesla develop and make “the most exciting and meaningful products of any company on Earth,” a study of 307 companies find that greater employee autonomy translates into more innovation.
Musk’s desire for control is not simply emphatically unreal. It also goes directly against what we know is fundamental to the productivity, commitment, and innovation of information workers: the desire for autonomy.
Musk’s obvious lack of trust in his employees contrasts with the much more flexible work policies of other organizations. This includes manufacturing and technology companies where Tesla employees could go. Think of the 3M manufacturing company’s approach, which the company explicitly calls “trust-based.” The company allows employees to “create a schedule that helps them work when and where they can most effectively.”
As an example of more than one potential place to work for Tesla staff, Applied Materials, a high-tech manufacturer, developed a “Excellence from Anywhere” modality. Instead of a top-down approach, Applied has a team-led model, where team leaders work with team members to find out what works best for each team and employee. Applied is adopting best practices to facilitate innovation in remote and hybrid work, such as virtual asynchronous brainstorming to maintain a competitive advantage.
Tesla’s research and development staff may also consider working in more research-focused technology environments, such as the Institute of Information Science at the University of Southern California. By adopting research-based approaches, ISI has positioned itself in “a leadership position when it comes to figuring out how to do hybrid work” by maximizing the flexibility and autonomy of its staff.
Study after study shows that between 40 and 60 percent of employees would look for another job if they were forced to come to work against their wishes. And I’d like to eat my hat off if we don’t see an increase in dropout rates at Tesla as a result of a forced return to the office. After all, there’s a reason an executive staff member leaked Musk’s emails when he returned to the office.
In fact, we immediately witnessed a rejection of Musk’s demands to return from office by employee representatives in Germany, which has the first workers’ union in all of Tesla. Those who do not have union representation will vote with their feet. In fact, my information indicates that recruiters are already using Musk’s words to target desirable Tesla employees. Musk’s illusion of control and false assumptions will result in serious losses for Tesla and a gain for companies that are innovating about the future of work.
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