Big Tech Wants to Crack Down on Remote Employees

It wasn’t long ago — February 2021, in fact — that Brent Hyder, president and chief people officer at Salesforce declared, “An immersive workspace is no longer limited to a desk in our Towers; the 9-to-5 workday is dead; and the employee experience is about more than ping-pong tables and snacks.”

Yeah, about that, co-CEO Marc Benioff said in an internal message to staff that the newest employees aren’t productive enough. “Are we not building tribal knowledge with new employees without an office culture/?” he said in a message viewed by CNBC. Even with attempts at humor — Benioff reportedly phrased it as “asking for a friend” and added a smiley face with a halo — this type of message from a CEO typically, and generally with good reason, would be received by employees as disapproval of where things have gone.

It’s another of the signs that have built over time of tech companies wanting employees back in the office at least a majority of the time. Even though, ironically, many of these companies market their products as enabling remote work. But, for the office sector of CRE, it has to be welcome news for two reasons. One, the tech industrial leases a lot of space and knowing that they might want to go back to the good old days of mostly in-office work has to be a relief. Second, that industry has been a leader in expectations of benefits and perks. If they pull back, many other businesses have an argument to do the same thing.

And, actually, the desire for tech in-office isn’t exactly new. “Our Success From Anywhere approach has made us more productive than ever,” Hyder, who pronounced the passing of the traditional workday, wrote in November 2021. “And yet, something is missing. That intangible magic that comes from being with people. Sure, we’ve moved our brainstorms, offsites, happy hours and team building activities onto Zoom, but it’s not quite the same as being in-person. Our employees agree — 77% say they want to get together with their team in-person by the end of the year.”

Google had its official back-to-office date in April of this year, with employees expected to show in office at least three days a week. Laszlo Bock, former chief of Google human resources and current CEO of Humu, told Fortune that a Google hybrid model would likely be gone within five years.

But things didn’t work out that well, at least at first, according to Fortune: “And while Google says it expects 20% of its employees to eventually take advantage of its policy to work remotely full-time, so far a mere 5% have. Even the return date itself came with a string of misfires — new COVID variants and rising case numbers foiled three previous attempts.”

Even an established trend in an industry that depends heavily on rarefied levels of technical talent might not ultimately hold up, when there are other employers willing to flex to get the people they want. Which means that office owners and operators might wait before throwing victory parties.