‘I quit my job rather than go back to the office’

In June, Elon Musk told his employees at Tesla that he would like them to return to the office.

Those who do not return should “pretend to work somewhere else” he tweeted.

Mr Musk isn’t the only boss telling his employees to return to the workplace, and in many cases some have chosen to quit their jobs rather than return to a five-day workweek in the office.

Online recruitment platform LinkedIn has found that a third of businesses in the UK are planning to limit flexible working in the coming months.

But nearly two-thirds of workers say they are more productive in a hybrid or remote work environment.

Other research also suggests that a gap is opening up between those who run companies and those who work for them in the field.

Microsoft surveyed more than 20,000 workers in 11 countries. It found that 85% of executives say the shift to hybrid work has made it difficult to trust employees to be productive, but 73% of employees say they need a better reason to go back, than just the company’s expectations.

One who has decided to quit rather than return to the office is Christian Hänsel, a search optimization manager living in Bonn, Germany.

“I didn’t feel valued as a team member. I didn’t feel valued as an employee and I certainly didn’t feel cared for,” he says of his bosses’ demands for his return.

It only took Christian a few days to find another job and hand in his resignation, and he says many of his colleagues followed suit.

“You have to stand your ground, you have to talk about it, you have to be vocal, but you also have to weigh the pros and cons of working remotely and in the office. And you have to figure out what’s right for you,” he says.

The move back to the office comes at a time when the job market is tight.

Chantelle Brown works for the British recruitment company Latte.

“We always advise our clients not to advertise jobs that require someone to come five days a week,” she says.

“We had a client who asked for four days and we had to consult with them to say you have to offer more than that because you’re going to lose out to people who asked for two to three days in the office instead to have .”

“It’s just a better way of running a business,” says Jeff Maggioncalda, chief executive officer of US online learning platform Coursera, whose more than 1,000 employees are all “remote first,” meaning they choose to work in the classroom office or office work at home.

“Before the pandemic, I was an old-fashioned CEO,” he says.

“I was a person who went to work every day and we allowed some people to work from home on Wednesdays and quite frankly I despised that policy. I was like, you know, if you don’t come, you’re not doing the job.”

But during the pandemic, he was amazed to see that it was possible to get the job done while remaining flexible, but it required a new way of managing.

“It starts with recruitment,” he says. One of the things he does now is personally welcome new hires to the company and educate them about the business so that whether they work from home or in the office, “the purpose of the company aligns with the purpose of theirs life coincides”. .

The company is also now more focused on results than activity, he says.

“A manager who keeps track of whether the results are being produced and not whether someone is coming into the office – that’s the key switch managers have to make.”

He adds that offering more flexible work hours has allowed Coursera to bring more women into leadership positions and roles in technology.

Technology isn’t the only sector where women are more likely to choose a company that allows them to work remotely.

Grace Landon, from the London School of Economics, spoke to 100 workers in the financial sector and found that the vast majority of women were far more likely to want to work remotely for a significant part of their week.

“Women obviously still take on a larger part of the housework and caregiving responsibilities,” she says. “They have always valued autonomous work much more than men.”

She says people with disabilities, as well as people from ethnic minorities, are also more likely to appreciate remote work.

In general, she says, both employers and employees need to listen and compromise.

“We’re in the UK, productivity is at an all-time low. You have people… who say to you, ‘We’re more productive with a remote first-type configuration.’ Why not trust them and see what happens as part of a great experiment?”

For generations, people went into the office without even questioning whether it was necessary. The pandemic led to the need to quickly switch to a different way of working.

In industries where competition for workers is greater than ever, employers are finding that offering remote work is a cost-effective way to enhance their offering.

But if, as many are predicting, we enter a protracted recession and competition for talent ebbs, companies might find it easier to demand a return to the office.

For more information on this story, see Talking Business With Aaron Heslehurst on the BBC iplayer.