Come on Elon! Put yourself in the XNUMXst century.
In a recent infamous memo, Elon Musk told his Tesla staff: "Anyone who wants to work remotely must be in the office for a minimum (and I mean *minimum*) of 40 hours per week or leave Tesla."
Musk continued: "It's less than we ask factory workers." Well, yes, but white collar workers don't work on assembly lines either.
In a company-wide follow-up note, Musk continued: "The office should be where your real colleagues are, not some remote pseudo-office. If you don't show up, we'll assume you quit."
Oh, and don't think that because you're up in the company you'll get a pass. "The older you are, the more visible your presence should be."
This move is not surprising. Musk is known to work around 100 hours a week and is very demanding.
As Dolly Singh, former director of talent acquisition at SpaceX, put it: "Diamonds are created under pressure, and Elon Musk is a master diamond trader."
Now Musk is very good at some things. His combination of intelligence, hard work and vision revolutionized both space travel with SpaceX and electric cars with Tesla.
He will go down in history as Henry Ford or Thomas Edison of this century.
But, and it's a big but, sometimes he's wrong.
Studies show that people simply work better from home. Estimates vary, with productivity gains ranging from 3% to 5%. Nicholas Bloom, a Stanford University professor and expert on remote work, found that 40% of working hours in Americans are currently done from home. And more people want to work there. For example, in March, only 20% of job postings were remote on LinkedIn, but they saw more than half of the applications.
People just don't want to go back to the office.
A survey by Zapier, a work automation company, found that 32% of respondents said they had already left a job because they couldn't work remotely, and 61% said they would leave their job for a fully remote opportunity .
Sorry Elon, you can lead us into a brighter tech future, but your work attitude is trying to drag us back into a dark past.
He's not the only one. Many C-level executives want people to come back to the office.
Rotten apple! Wrong!
Is it any wonder that, in the latest LinkedIn Workforce Confidence Survey, employee optimism about their employer's business prospects has dropped six points over the next six months?
There are several reasons for this drop. Inflation, lagging wages, and an unstable stock market come to mind.
But another important factor is that people no longer want to go back to the office.
The more the leaders insist that they do so, the more disaffected the workers become. And in this economy, disgruntled employees can always go out and find better, or at least distant, jobs.
The Great Resignation is not - I repeat, not - slows down.
Now maybe Elon can get away with his business dealings. SpaceX, Starlink and Tesla create things that excite people.
The engineers I spoke with there tell me they feel overworked, but are excited to do work that will make a real difference. They build the future.
But most of us don't have businesses like that. Instead, we build a product, provide a service, or connect businesses. A good job is needed. But is this enough for employees to agree to come to the office? I doubt it.
I think it's much better to keep your employees happy by letting them work remotely.
It makes them happy, and happy workers are productive workers.
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