Is it the death of work from home? Even Zoom calls employees back to office

For the first time since the COVID-19 outbreak started, Zoom is asking all of its staff to report back to work. The tech giant, which continues to be a pioneer in the post-pandemic trend of remote work, has asked all its employees who live within 50 miles (80 kilometres) of a corporate headquarters to come in at least two days each week on a hybrid schedule. This latest development is part of a big company’s ongoing campaign to roll back flexible working arrangements. Let’s take a closer look. Also read: Stop Work: How an Indian tech firm is pushing staff to go home on time Zoom makes its staff return to the office According to a statement released by Zoom, the company is now requiring a “structured hybrid approach,” which states that employees who live close to an office “need to be onsite two days a week” because it’s “most effective” for the video-conferencing service. “As a company, we are in a better position to use our own technologies, continue to innovate, and support our global customers. We’ll continue to leverage the entire Zoom platform to keep our employees and dispersed teams connected and working efficiently,” the company said, according to Business Insider. The tech company added that it will continue to “hire the best talent, regardless of location” and that the new policy would be implemented in August and September on a staggered schedule that differed by country. “We’ll continue to leverage the entire Zoom platform to keep our employees and dispersed teams connected and working efficiently,” the spokesperson said. The company had 8,400 employees at the end of January, with the US accounting for more than half of those. Zoom’s website lists various worldwide locations in addition to its two American headquarters in San Jose, California, and Denver, Colorado, according to Fortune.

According to a poll by academics at Stanford University and other institutions that have been done monthly since the epidemic, over 13 per cent of employees in the United States, where Zoom is headquartered, were entirely remote in July, while another 29 per cent had hybrid arrangements. The Office for National Statistics in the UK earlier this year saw tendencies that are comparable to those, reported BBC. In the US, the percentage of days spent working from home was barely around five per cent before the pandemic. Working conditions that are more flexible than what employers consider ideal are constantly desired by employees worldwide. Also read: Explained: What new research reveals about the future of work from home The reason When the pandemic left millions of workers who wanted to communicate with coworkers online stranded in their homes in 2020, the San Jose-based company’s shares multiplied six-fold, according to CNN. Zoom became the go-to video conferencing provider quickly. However, towards the end of 2021, since the company’s stock crashed, it already lost at least $100 billion in market value. The stock remained unchanged this year as people around the country went back to work, reducing the need for video communications, according to Business Insider. It was a rough patch for the tech giant. After expanding too quickly, Zoom slashed 15 per cent of its workforce in February, or roughly 1,300 employees. Members of the executive leadership team also gave up their incentives from the fiscal year 2023 and decreased their base pay by 20 per cent for the upcoming year. The value of each share decreased from more than $500 at the company’s peak in October 2020 to around $68 today. Also read: End of Work from Home? Are TCS employees being forced to come to office? Similar moves by other companies With all due respect to the irony, Zoom is not an exception to the return-to-office trend that is sweeping Internet organisations. Similar regulations have recently been implemented by Google, Amazon, Salesforce and TCS, terminating the COVID-era model that provided employees flexibility to work from home. According to CNBC, Google still keeps making an effort to entice staff members back to its headquarters location in San Francisco. Earlier, the firm required in-office attendance on specific days. However, the business acknowledged that performance bonuses may be impacted by working from home. According to the report, the tech giant is providing employees with a “Summer Special” plan that allows them to stay at an on-campus hotel for a discounted rate of about $99 (or about Rs 8,200). This is done to make it easier to travel, work remotely, and eat “delicious food.” According to Times Now, Amazon requested its staff to work three days each week starting on 1 May. CEO Andy Jassy stated in October of last year that managers will be in charge of determining how frequently if at all, their employees should report to work. TCS mandated that workers report to work three days per week beginning in October of the previous year. Notably,  t he Tata Corporation was one of the first providers of IT services to summon its employees back to the workplace. Additionally, it is the only one to date to strictly adhere to the diktat. CEO of the Walt Disney Company Bob Iger announced a four-day in-office requirement starting on 1 March, while CEO of Apple Tim Cook informed staff through email of the company’s new hybrid work-from-office policy. Even the White House is putting further restrictions on remote work. In an internal email obtained by CNN, it reportedly requested last week that Cabinet agencies bring in government employees more frequently in the coming months. The White House’s chief of staff Jeff Zients’ directive, which notes the administration’s in-person stance over the previous two years, is the clearest indication yet that, with a crucial election just around the horizon, it thinks in-office attendance is essential for agencies to carry out its programme. Work-from-home policy After workers were accustomed to greater flexibility, businesses experienced some opposition from their workforce. According to surveys, workers continue to value the option of working remotely to some extent. The Stanford team has already shown that remote work is much less popular in Asia and Europe than it is in English-speaking nations. The percentage of days spent working from home in the US was barely around five per cent prior to the pandemic. Workers around the world persistently want more flexible work schedules than companies consider ideal. According to a study by UCLA, workers are 18 per cent less productive when they are working from home. Another study by Harvard says an online retailer saw a four per cent drop in productivity due to remote work. Its sales dropped since employees had poor interactions and put customers on hold for a longer time. Thus, it is quite evident that working from home may feel good but is not proving to be good for businesses. With inputs from agencies