Utah
End of home office: employee has to sell dog – and is cheered for by the boss
Dogs are not tolerated in many offices (symbol image)
© igorr1/iStockphotos
When times are tough, you have to put in a little more effort, found the head of the Clearlink company – and ended the home office rule. His joy that an employee had to sell his dog was not the only failure.
During the pandemic, working from home has become a matter of course for many office workers. Now many employers are demanding a return to the office. At an advertising company in the US state of Utah, this decision led to a memorable performance by the boss. He not only praised the willingness to make sacrifices to sell his dog for the job, but also virtually denied parents the ability to work.
CEO James Clarke addressed his workforce in a video link. Although he had promised back in October that he would not introduce compulsory office under any circumstances, he had since changed his mind. “You mistook my kindness for weakness,” he told his employees. Employees would have to increase their productivity “by 30 to 50 times our normal performance,” he demanded in the appearance, which was distributed on numerous platforms such as Reddit. And one measure for this is the end of the home office.
Harsh words for dog owners and parents
In order to be able to guarantee attendance, you “also have to make sacrifices,” he admits. Because of the announcement, an employee decided to sell the family dog because he could not leave it at home. As an animal lover, that breaks his heart, the boss put it on record – only to then present it as a worthwhile incision. He also wants to see the willingness to make sacrifices in himself. “I challenge you: work harder than me. You won’t make it,” he boasts in his speech.
He explains that the employees should be able to do so much more with the advertising company’s increasingly “challenging” economic situation. It also seems clear to Clarke that not only dog owners are affected by the office constraint: “Only very few full-time parents can also be productive full-time employees,” he complained. The necessary compromises are “fair neither to these children nor to the employers,” he judged. The situation would be even more dramatic for single mothers. “It puts so much stress into mothers’ lives. I wouldn’t want to do that to anyone.”
During the work time
What private things can I do in my home office?
loss of control
According to him, there are two main reasons why he still wants to force the employees into the office. He warned that almost 30 employees had not even turned on their laptops in the last month. And speculated aloud that they might be secretly pursuing a second job. The second reason: The company had moved into a new “world-class” office earlier this year. And apparently there weren’t enough employees there for him.
“I would have expected that you – all of you – would want to work there every day. But that wasn’t the case,” he lamented. Perhaps his attitude was naive. The employees on site are all enthusiastic, he assured. “They mentioned how much more their teams achieve. And how much better they felt in this great work environment.” Employees should come into the office four days a week if they live closer than 50 miles (about 80 kilometers) from the company’s headquarters in Draper, Utah. Around 275 people are affected, almost a third of the workforce.
end of freedom of choice
However, the company does not give employees a choice. Anyone who does not show up must expect “corrective measures”, according to an email to the employees. Even those who move further away are not exempt. “This is a hindrance to the purpose of this measure,” it says. Financial support for moving to the area or looking after the children is therefore not provided. Confronted with the allegations, a spokesman for the company told “Vice” that it was about achieving “the common goals”.
Clearlink isn’t the only company to move from a generous home office rule to a strict office duty. Since last year, attendance at tech companies like Apple has also become increasingly compulsory again. Twitter chose the harshest step. After the takeover, Elon Musk announced that all employees, regardless of where they lived, had to go back to the nearest offices of the group. “We will consider everything else as termination.”