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When Tim Cook called the coronavirus a “difficult time” and sent his workforce home in March 2020, Apple’s CEO couldn’t have expected that two and a half years later he would have a battle on his hands to get employees back to the office. .
Apple employees took a few days to protest the tech giant’s demand that workers return to three days a week starting in September. A group calling itself Apple Collective warned on Monday that there should not be a “consistent order from senior management,” as a Slack channel supporting remote work at Apple has grown to 10,000 members.
The move by Silicon Valley bellwether Apple has sparked concerns among tech workers about whether their company will follow suit. Big tech companies have been quick to send workers home during the pandemic, but the sector has been reluctant to call everyone out, fearing a major exodus of talent.
“There’s some palpable anxiety,” said an iPhone maker hardware engineer who asked not to be identified. “He’s operating from a place of hubris, believing that Apple is a desirable place to work and there will always be people who want to work for Apple, no matter the circumstances.”
Some workers have been buoyed by the tight labor market, which has increased the demand for tech jobs. According to data from Morning Consult, nearly half of tech workers will be gone entirely by 2022, with most showing no interest in making a full-time return.
These disagreements have led to significant differences in how Silicon Valley tech companies view the future of work.
Apple’s Cook says that collaboration is best done in person, and that the company’s culture and innovation value is lost with a remote and isolated workforce.
While Apple insisted on three days a week as part of a “pilot” starting on September 5, Tesla took a more robust approach.
In a June email to employees, Elon Musk asked for at least 40 hours a week at the office, saying, “If you don’t show up, we’ll assume you quit.”
In contrast, executives at Facebook’s parent company Meta have embraced virtual work as a permanent option, with the list of top executives increasingly divided, including Adam Mosseri, Meta’s head of Instagram.
Meanwhile, Dropbox, a file storage company, has declared itself a “virtual first” company: employees are expected to spend 90 percent of their time away from the office. With Airbnb, workers can work wherever they want in their home country, and up to 90 days a year, anywhere in 170 countries around the world.
Others are taking a more cautious approach. Amazon told its employees late last year that flexible jobs would be decided on a team-by-team basis. He has not given any specific instructions since.
Google’s plans to return to the office have experienced several false starts, and the tech team is now moving into a piecemeal approach.
An internal FAQ page for Google employees, seen by the FT, says staff are being told to return to the office wherever they are, with a 30-day transition period.
In preparation for the return, Google’s parent company, FIFA, has invited employees who want to stay away entirely to apply to management, with feasibility being assessed on a case-by-case basis. A Google spokeswoman said most requests for full remote work or relocation are approved. He said the date for the return of all the hybrid workers has not been decided.
Adrian Perez-Siam, who used to work in Google’s financial group, was considered for a promotion because of his performance, but he turned down the offer to work remotely. He later resigned.
“They gave me an ultimatum,” he said. “They felt strongly about having people in the office. My argument was that if I was above my performance and if I did a good job, I could easily fulfill my role.”
Those accepted will essentially start new jobs, with different terms—no longer workers in Silicon Valley earning Silicon Valley wages. Unlike Perez-Siam, a Google software engineer who was given permission to walk away completely said there are other teething problems.
“I feel like I have to constantly prove that I’m as effective as everyone else working in the office,” the man said. It’s common for my manager to blame some of my team’s problems on the fact that we’ve been working remotely for the past two years, but in reality, it could just be a lack of management.
That’s according to researchers at Georgetown’s McDonough School of Business, who studied data from 70,000 domestic workers and found that bad bosses are more likely to move away. But workers in Silicon Valley should be careful what they wish for, argues associate professor Jason Schlotzer.
“Once a company has built up its technology infrastructure or practices scaling meetings, there’s a lot less reason for that person to be employed in the United States,” he said.
Other tech companies are ready to pull any disgruntled employees. According to data from ZipRecruiter, the percentage of job openings in the technology sector that offer fully remote conditions has soared from 12 percent in 2019 to 39 percent in 2022.
Among the users are companies such as Oyster, an HR platform that allows companies to manage remote employees – including their own. Oyster CEO Tony Jamos says the troubled image at some of the biggest tech companies is a “leadership crisis” fueled by fears of out-of-control.
“They’re a dinosaur,” he said of the companies. “They’re no longer at the cutting edge of leadership, they’re not at the cutting edge of organizational design.”
Melanie Brooks, an assistant professor at Columbia Business School, said comments like these have become commonplace in the “emotional” conversations surrounding returning to the office — or not. She says that the plans of technology giants are dogmatic rather than scientific, and that there is a lack of clarity around the thinking of executives.
“What struck me was how random it felt,” said Brock, “without really understanding why the job would want to be in the office or not be in the office.”
Regardless, some tech executives in Silicon Valley seem ready to push forward. Real estate trends suggest a sustained, even growing confidence in the physical office, especially among technology companies.
“New leases by software, hardware and social media companies have led the tech industry’s office rebuild,” real estate group CBRE said, adding that the total amount of office space leased by Bay Area tech companies will increase by 31 percent in 2021. with “large tenants” seeking control of all buildings – albeit in more flexible terms than previously sought.
“Tenants can ask for more flexibility in how much space they have, and they don’t have to make a 10- or 15-year commitment to do it,” said Colin Yasukochi, managing director of CBRE’s Tech Insights Center. There is still a lot of uncertainty as to what position they want.
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