Working from home has been the norm in Silicon Valley for a year. Now the tech giants want to slowly let their employees come back – and encounter bitter resistance.
Working at home – that was unthinkable for many people for a long time. And even for company bosses it was hard to imagine that their employees would work efficiently within their own four walls. Then came the pandemic. After more than a year in the home office, the tech companies in Silicon Valley are now slowly preparing to return to everyday life. But it will probably not be the same as before: The home office is becoming a competitive advantage.
Because after initial skepticism, many of the employees have set up a wonderful home office. And enjoy the benefits. The average 55 minutes’ commute in the USA is no longer necessary, and childcare or illness are no longer incompatible with work.
Resistance to returning to everyday office life
It is therefore not surprising that the enthusiasm of the employees about the plans announced in recent months to return to the office is very limited. Apple has met with the loudest resistance in recent months. When CEO Tim Cook announced in a letter in June that they would like to return to the office more and more from autumn, headwinds quickly came up. In a petition, employees asked that their needs be taken into account. 90 percent of the participants stated that spatial flexibility would play an important role for them, almost 60 percent feared that colleagues would leave the company because of the office constraints. Almost a third of the 1,743 signatories even stated that they would, if necessary, resign themselves because of this.
Apple’s proposal was already far from the previous normal state. Instead of having to go to the office every day, employees should also be able to spend two days a week in the home office. “Video conferences have certainly reduced the distance between us. But some things simply cannot be replaced,” CEO Tim Cook explained the decision in a letter to the employees.
There is an industry
The fact that the employees are not satisfied with it is certainly also due to the way other Silicon Valley giants deal with the topic. Twitter boss Jack Dorsey decided early on that the employees would also be allowed to work from home permanently. Mark Zuckerberg announced a 50 percent quota for Facebook within the next decade, Google will decide on a case-by-case basis who has to come back to the office, but only 20 percent of employees should be allowed to work externally on a permanent basis, explained CEO Sundar Pichai.
Unlike many other areas of the economy, the tech industry is actually in a very good position for the home office. A large part of the work takes place on the computer or smartphone, the technical equipment is usually good and otherwise there is enough capital to buy it. Meetings can usually be held digitally with little effort. The lower number of appointments even increases productivity, economists are convinced of the “New York Times”.
Accordingly, many employees lack an understanding of the decision to return to the office. “If the last 18 months have shown anything, it’s that it doesn’t really matter whether I’m here or there,” explained a Google employee to Vanity Fair. “I’m at least as productive – or even more productive – here in the middle of nowhere than I was on the Google campus.”
From beggar to king
Moving away also has clear financial advantages: While the prices in the Valley are adjusted to the high salaries – the average salary for software developers there, at $ 137,907, is more than four times the average US salary – the salary in other parts can be reduced of the country to live in luxury. This escape can even be put into numbers: According to the city, almost 39,000 people left San Francisco in the last year. The year before it was just 5000.
For many, one factor in the willingness to move away may have been an unexpected jump in their own wealth. Because tech company stocks soared over the past year, so too has the value of blocks of shares that many employees receive. According to “Vanity Fair”, many of them were suddenly able to buy new houses far from work.
The corporations are well aware of this cost advantage. Much to the annoyance of their employees, some have started adjusting salaries when they change residence. Google even offers a calculator that can be used to calculate the salary for the region in which you live.
Homeoffice as Job-Bonus
Experts believe that this could change in the long run. Just as the gigantic office complexes with their fitness studios, lounges and parks were supposed to attract employees before, the home office could soon emerge as a competitive advantage over other tech companies. He was offered $ 500,000 in shares to move closer to the office, reported a tech employee of an undisclosed company to “Vanity Fair”. He refused. “I am happy with my current situation and I am 100 times more productive,” he says with conviction. “You can turn the office complex into a museum if I have my way.”
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