Tesla Announces New “Home From Work” Program
FREMONT, CALIFORNIA — In an internal memo sent to employees today, Tesla CEO Elon Musk announced the launch of a new program that would allow employees to live at the Tesla campus so they can work 100 hours a week instead of a mere 80.
Earlier this year, Tesla commissioned a group of analysts to find ways to increase the productivity of its employees, who are pressured to work grueling hours through nights, weekends, and holidays. The analysts found that employees had to pay sky-high rent for Bay Area housing, endure long commutes in heavy traffic on their way to work, and navigate a parking lot so hellish that there’s now an Instagram account dedicated to documenting how bad it’s gotten.
The resulting report suggested ways to ease the commute by implementing staggered working hours and improving the parking situation by shuttling workers from other parking lots to the factory. Instead Mr. Musk asked, “Why do the workers need to go home?”
The billionaire CEO is known for thinking outside the box when it comes to running a company. The new “home from work” program, an inversion of the normal “work from home” paradigm, would convert portions of the company’s Fremont factory into dormitories where Tesla employees can enjoy all the comforts of home from the productivity of their own offices.
Need time with the family? Unfortunately, only Tesla employees are allowed to live in the dormitories, although Mr. Musk, known affectionately to some Tesla employees as “Daddy E,” assured them, “You’ll have plenty of family. They’re called coworkers. You can see your kids after we ship Model 3.”
Need to eat lunch or dinner? Employees who work extra hours will receive discounts on the company’s catered food, which normally costs $10 a plate.
A place to relax? Break rooms are always available with company-catered snacks, though the peanuts have recently been removed due to cost-cutting measures.
Mr. Musk hailed the program as a great gain in efficiency that would help achieve the company’s goal of producing compelling electric cars at scale. “I highly encourage everyone to take advantage of this opportunity to help make the world a better place. Trust me, it’s a lot more comfortable than sleeping under your desk. And the harder you work now, the sooner you’ll be able to sleep in the back of a self driving Tesla.”
However, the program has already drawn criticism internally. During a Q&A session at the most recent quarterly all-hands — conducted while workers were assembling rows of cots next to the production line — one employee asked, “What will happen to work life balance? When will I be able to see my [spouse]?” Mr. Musk responded by asking the employee who their manager was, noting that the employee was “definitely not on board with our mission and values.”
“At Tesla, work is life and life is work. And since they’re the same thing, they’re inherently balanced,” he said. “If you’re not happy about your work-life balance, get divorced.”
