During Corona, working from home was the only option for many companies. But in the USA, some companies are increasingly ordering their employees back into the office. Experts recommend the middle ground.
Zoom of all places – the company that sells software for video calls is bringing its employees back to the office. At least for two days a week. And the company is not alone: other large companies also want more presence in the offices.
The online mail order company Amazon wants employees to work in the office at least three days a week. Disney makes four days of attendance compulsory, and Google stipulates three days of office duty.
Those who do not comply could get a worse performance appraisal. In order to measure this, it could also be checked whether the company ID card is used to enter the company building. Working from home is now the exception, a Google spokesman told the New York Times.
The Office and “the Serendipity Moment”
Big San Francisco tech firm Salesforce has a different strategy for getting people back into the office. The group donates ten US dollars per day and employee when working in the company – but only for a maximum of ten days.
The argument for more work in the office is “the serendipity moment,” says trade journalist Joanne Lipman. In other words, the chance encounters, conversations and ideas that would not arise if employees did not meet in person.
“Brainstorming over a video conference doesn’t work as well as in face-to-face meetings. There are studies on that,” Lipman told CNBC. However, these rules often conflict with what employees want: Because they “perceive these obligations as arbitrary and ask themselves: why?”.
Younger people prefer to work in person
Employers can cite a new Stanford University study in response. According to the study, those who work completely from home are ten percent less productive. It is more difficult to communicate, employees also get less feedback.
Who prefers to stay at home and who prefers to work in the office also depends on age, says Karin Kimbrough, chief economist and data scientist at the LinkedIn business network:
Younger people prefer to work in the company. They want the connections, the coaching, not hanging out at home with their parents. The older Millennials or younger Gen Xers who have children at home also want to stay at home more.
Linkedin data also showed that, according to Kimbrough, “women in particular, primarily black and Latino women” are more likely to apply when working from home is possible.
A hybrid future?
Companies want presence, many employees want flexibility. Nicholas Bloom, an economist from Stanford University, sees the solution in a mixture. He spoke to around 1,000 managers: “Hybrid work will remain and is the future. Working at home for five days will not work. But always working in the office – the employees don’t want that.”
So the future is hybrid. However, 58 percent of all employees in the USA will probably not be interested in this discussion at all or only very little. Because they cannot work from home. They work on construction sites, in workshops, in cafés or as security in the high-rise buildings where new home office rules are decided.