Working at home
Threats, pressure and parties: Silicon Valley desperately wants to get its employees back into the office
The home office gave many people an undreamt-of flexibility – which they no longer want to give up (symbol image)
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With the onset of the pandemic, entire industries went home office in one fell swoop. Now many companies are trying to lure their employees back. But many of them just don’t want to.
It was a gigantic experiment: could large parts of the global economy suddenly work from home? Before the corona pandemic forced office jobs all over the world to work from home in one fell swoop in spring 2020, it was hard to imagine. But apparently many of the employees have long since settled down to work from home. In Silicon Valley in particular, companies are struggling with the fact that the workforce no longer wants to come into the office.
The most recent example is Apple. After several delays in making a return to the impressive headquarters in Cupertino mandatory, the group is now trying again: From September 5th, the employees are to come back to the office. At least temporarily: Apple’s strict obligation to visit the office has become a hybrid model, Tuesday and Thursday are mandatory days, and the teams can set an additional day themselves. Two more days can be spent working from home. This emerges from internal mails that are available to “The Verge”.
Gap between management and employees
When Apple first announced its plans for the fall in June, resistance came quickly. In an internal open letter, employees denounced Apple’s decision as a step in the wrong direction. “Without this flexibility, many of us feel we have to choose between a family life, personal well-being and an affirmation to do our best – or to work at Apple,” says the letter, which was written by about 80 employees. “There seems to be a misunderstanding of how management envisions flexible working and how many Apple employees experience it.”
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Apple is not alone in the challenge posed by its employees. Other large tech companies have been trying desperately for months to fill the gigantic empty offices in Silicon Valley with employees again. Not all companies rely on coercion. With a group owned by the singer Lizzo in its headquarters, food trucks that change weekly and free merchandise, Google, for example, wants to make it tempting for its employees to return. Microsoft and the chip manufacturer Qualcomm also tried to lure homeworkers with concerts and parties.
carrot and stick
Whether the strategy works is another matter. “These parties and giveaways are an acknowledgment from companies that employees don’t want to go back to the office, at least not as often as they used to,” Columbia University professor Adam Galinsky told the New York Times. He sees it as the carrot to the stick: Instead of punishing the employees. if they stay at home, they will be rewarded for visiting the office. But that only works to a limited extent, Nick Bloom from Stanford University is certain: the employees would save an hour a day just for the journey. “So you’re not going to be lured in with free bagels and ping-pong.”
The whip has also only worked to a limited extent so far. Apple experienced this in June. The head of the important division for machine learning, Ian Goodfellow, has resigned there. The decision to end the home office is said to be to blame: from April 11, many Apple employees in the USA had to work in the office again. Apparently Goodfellow didn’t want that. “I firmly believe that more flexibility would have been the best decision for my team,” he said in a farewell message to his team, according to Tech reporter Zoë Schiffer. Goodfellow is considered one of the leading experts in artificial intelligence. Apple only recruited him from its competitor Google in 2019. And now lost to the home office. At Google and other companies, too, high-ranking employees justified their resignation with office pressure.
change on the horizon
As a result, some companies have completely abandoned the idea of a joint return to the office. Twitter and Facebook made it clear last year that there will no longer be an obligation to work in the office in the corporations. Offices are still available, but anyone who wants to dial in from home can do so permanently.
The fact that the employees are so self-confident certainly also has something to do with the labor market situation in the Valley. The tech industry has boomed again since the beginning of the pandemic, and many companies were desperately looking for good staff. Those who were qualified enough could not only choose their employer, but were often lured with extremely attractive bonuses and additional benefits. In the last few weeks, however, there have been signs of a slow change. Due to the difficult economic situation, many of the corporations are expecting falling profits, and some have already seen the slump. The result: Almost all large companies such as Apple or Meta have imposed a hiring freeze, some even announced layoffs. Returning to the office quickly becomes the lesser of two evils.
Sources:The Verge, Bloomberg, New York Times, SF Gate, Los Angeles Times, Wired
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