Return-to-Office Inducements Get Tougher and More Creative

Tech companies that pioneered remote work now are enforcing stricter return-to-office mandates amid layoffs and shrinking office footprints.

As economic headwinds begin to gust, a showdown of sorts—maybe we should call it a “last stand”—is developing over whether and how to intensify efforts to cajole people into returning to the office. Tactics range from coercion (think performance reviews) to what we’ll charitably call a dignified form of begging. Few observers think hybrid work patterns will fade, but several major employers are drawing the line on how flexible they’re willing to be about work-from-home days.

On the coercion side of the scale, Google, which like many Bay Area tech giants has loosely enforced a three-days-per-week in-office policy for the past year, warned employees last week that “non-attendance” will be a metric in upcoming performance reviews.

When Google initiated its three-days-in-office policy in April 2022, the search giant relied on perks—including gourmet meals and a private concert by pop star Lizzo—to draw workers back to their desks at its headquarters in Mountain View, California. Now Google is warning employees that it will be monitoring badge entry swipes to make sure workers show up on their designated in-office days. In a memo to employees, Google’s chief people officer (that’s what the search giant calls its HR director) offered this guidance to employees on the importance of in-office work:

“We’ve heard from Googlers that those who spend at least three days a week in the office feel more connected to other Googlers and that this effect is magnified when teammates work from the same location. Of course, not everyone believes in ‘magical hallway conversations,’ but there’s no question that working together in the same room makes a positive difference,” said chief people officer Fiona Cicconi.

San Francisco-based Salesforce, which has spent most of the past 12 months offloading nearly half the space at its two namesake HQ towers in the city—while hailing the benefits of the post-pandemic hybrid work paradigm—is now appealing to its employees’ better angels to get them to show up for work in person.

In a message to staff in the company’s #all-salesforce Slack channel, as first reported by Fortune, San Francisco’s largest tech employer announced that a new program called Connect for Good: Salesforce will donate $10 to a local charity for each day an employee comes into the office from June 12 to June 23. The company also will donate $10 to charity if a remote worker attends a virtual event. Salesforce employees have been asked to vote for their favorite local charities for the next two days, according to a report in the San Francisco Business Times. The company said it is hoping to raise more than $1 million in donations through the effort.

With office occupancy levels stalled below 50 percent, according to Kastle’s 10-city average, several corporate giants have moved to tougher enforcement of their return-to-office mandates, including Chipotle, Farmers Insurance, Lyft, Disney, Snapchat, Meta, and Amazon.

Salesforce, which has laid off about 10 percent of its workforce this year, encouraged employee interactions last year through a series of corporate retreats, including an event called Trailblazer Ranch held in Santa Cruz County.

When it announced last year that it was listing for sublease 412,000 square feet of its Salesforce West office tower in San Francisco, the tech company said it was fully embracing its “success from anywhere, careers everywhere” strategy, giving employees a say in how much work they do in the office and making hybrid/remote work a permanent part of the corporate culture.

In March, Salesforce abruptly changed course, mandating a three-days-a-week office policy that stretches to four days for customer-facing employees. According to a report from CoStar, the workforce strategy shift was adopted in the face of pressure from activist investors who are demanding more efficiency and profitability from the company.

Google, which in April postponed plans to start building an 80-acre Urban Village in downtown San Jose, announced last month that it is listing for sublease 1.4 million square feet in Mountain View and Sunnyvale.

From: BenefitsPRO