By the way, all that stuff about going back to the office? It ain’t necessarily so…
It’s one of those news stories that everyone comments on without having done much research: after the end of the pandemic-related restrictions, we’re all returning to the office, as if nothing had happened. Even the supposedly visionary Elon Musk has ordered his employees to return to a minimum of 40 hours a week in the office, or leave the company.
The reality, as is often the case, is somewhat different. In practice, Musk’s email to his workforce (most of which manufactures cars, a task that cannot possibly be made from home) has to be seen within the context of the company’s culture, one that has made many of its employees rich, and who tend to share its CEO’s concept of work. In reality Musk is simply looking to get rid of certain employees who do not share his vision at no cost.
If we look a little behind the headlines about the lengths some companies are going to so as to persuade their employees to return to the office, we see that their ploys are not working: huge numbers of people simply do not see any advantage in returning to the office, and certainly don’t want to sit in a traffic jam after having proven they can perform perfectly well from home.
US labor statistics suggest that only half of the employees who have been asked by their company…
