If you work for Tesla and you’ve been doing that job from home since the pandemic started, be wary if there’s a knock at the door. It might be Elon calling.
Elon Musk, CEO of the electric vehicle maker, created a stir this week with emails to employees in which he said he wants them working at least 40 hours a week in the company’s offices. Those who seek an exception to that policy will need approval from Musk himself — or they’ll just be fired, he suggested.
The emails were reported on by Electrek, which covers news about electric vehicles and the industry.
“Everyone at Tesla is required to spend a minimum of 40 hours in the office per week,” Musk wrote. “Moreover, the office must be where your actual colleagues are located, not some remote pseudo office. If you don’t show up, we will assume you have resigned.”
“Tesla has and will create and actually manufacture the most exciting and meaningful products of any company on Earth,” he added. “This will not happen by phoning it in.”
In a reply on Twitter, Musk doubled down when asked for comment on Tesla workers who think “coming into the office is an antiquated concept.”
“They should pretend to work somewhere else,” he said.
Musk’s stance goes against much of the thinking throughout the tech industry, where companies have been slow to put any demands on workers around when or if they return or how much time they need to spend in physical offices. Workers who were sent home at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic have gained critical leverage over the past two years as companies are doing what it takes to appease sought-after tech talent and win recruiting battles.
‘Tesla has and will create and actually manufacture the most exciting and meaningful products of any company on Earth. This will not happen by phoning it in.’
“There are of course companies that don’t require this, but when was the last time they shipped a great new product? It’s been a while,” Musk said in one of his emails about his new office policy.
In the Seattle region, tech giants such as Amazon and Microsoft have repeatedly tweaked return-to-office calls in reaction to COVID surges or competitor stances.
We reached out to several tech and human resources leaders on Wednesday to gauge their reaction to Musk’s latest edict. Here’s what they had to say:
Sandi Lin, co-founder and CEO of Skilljar, the Seattle startup that builds cloud-based training and onboarding programs, told GeekWire that “every company is different and the CEO has the prerogative to determine what works best.”
“I don’t know the auto industry to have an opinion on what is needed — Tesla creates physical products and has factories, which is very different from the software industry,” she added. “I’m just grateful to be able to offer our team flexible work options.”
Dan Spaulding, chief people officer at Zillow Group, said in a post on LinkedIn last month that companies “trying to pretend that it’s 2019 again” prove that they’ve failed to evolve on flexible work, and they do so at their own peril.
Seattle-based real estate giant Zillow leaned heavily into a hybrid work model two years ago, and says it has gained a recruiting advantage against companies increasingly requiring employees to spend at least part of their time back in the office.
“The pandemic ushered in the biggest changes to work culture this country has seen in decades,” Spaulding wrote. “It shined a bright spotlight on a truth that was already there: the traditional 9-to-5 office construct didn’t work well for everyone. Now, former office workers have adjusted to a different model and have largely proven to be just as productive, if not more. A better way is possible. For some, increased flexibility at work has been the lone silver lining that has emerged in this pandemic. Employers who take that away will see many employees walk out the office door”
Amy Johnson, chief people officer at Highspot, also said that every company is different and every culture is unique. Over the past two years the enterprise software startup has discovered that different employees thrive in different working environments and one size doesn’t fit all.
“Putting our people first by offering flexibility has not only positively impacted our employees’ well-being, but also our business,” Johnson told GeekWire. “Revenue has grown 935% over the past three years, and our employee attrition continues to decrease and is well below industry standards.”
The startup plans to continue to explore what works best and evolve its approach as the world continues to change, she added.
Jenny Chynoweth is owner of Kohr Consulting, a boutique recruiting agency for the Seattle area. She doesn’t have any candidates specifically out of Tesla right now, but she has seen a definite uptick of candidates requesting “remote only” opportunities.
“It will be interesting to see how that all pans out, though, as we are also seeing an increase in layoffs and downsizings,” Chynoweth said. “Candidates may not have the ability to be so selective in the near future as the number of current available jobs starts to diminish.”
Doug Sayed is founder and CEO at Applied HR Strategies, which advises companies on employee compensation packages. He said it will be interesting to see how Musk’s demand plays out at Tesla.
“Amazon realized it was certainly going to lose a lot of people once they made their ‘office centric culture’ pronouncement, and reversed course fairly quickly after that,” Sayed said. “Apple also just postponed their three days in the office each week requirement that was supposed to kick in recently (ostensibly blaming COVID, but they were getting tons of pushback from inside the company about the requirement).
“I think Elon is on the wrong side of this issue,” Sayed added. “At least if he cares about retaining talent.”
GeekWire Managing Editor Taylor Soper contributed to this report.