Leaked Zoom all-hands: CEO says employees must return to offices because they can’t be as innovative or get to know each other on Zoom::Zoom CEO Eric Yuan discussed the benefits of in-person work in a leaked meeting.
Ice cream factory urges its employees not to eat ice cream.
Couldn’t have said it better myself! It’s like telling someone to work at an ice cream factory but not have any ice cream. Just doesn’t make sense.
I’m going to choose to believe the CEO is actively trying to tank the share price for some reason. This is approaching get fired or sued by shareholders level.
Golden parachute too nice to pass up.
Glad I’m not a stockholder, since the CEO basically says their only product, remote connectivity, stifles innovation and connection. What a world.
They’ve gained about 1.2 billion in market cap this week based on stock price. The super rich do not experience consequences.
Sure, that’s the sensationalist and reactionary headline, but I think the real lesson to learn from all this is that with remote work, like many things, moderation is key. The CEO is not implying “innovation” and “getting to know each other” is necessary for every meeting because it isn’t. So what he’s really saying is whenever those two aspects are necessary, Zoom won’t suffice.
I don’t think we should take any lessons from what CEOs say. If studies show that too much remote work indeed makes for worse results, I’m fine with it. If a CEO says it? Most likely a lie.
Seriously I don’t understand the mindset of people who treat everything a CEO says as gospel. How much is a CEO actually involved in the collaboration or innovation going on at the IC level? Somewhere between “barely” and “not at all” I’d guess. No doubt the CEO has personal reasons he wants people back in office, and just put some BS in the all hands meeting to make it sound good
Why tf do out of touch executives and managers always think that we want to make friends at work? I don’t really care to know any of my coworkers, I just want to do my job in a professional manner, get paid well for it, and then either go home or close the laptop and leave my home office.
Also the only creativity that the office gives me is how to creatively get around the Internet restrictions they place on us, or how to creatively appear to be working when there’s nothing to do.
If I wanted to make friends I’d go to a bar or something else that adults do together in groups, like bowling leagues.
Depends on the type of work. Workshops and strategy sessions are definitely better in person than online for me.
Okay so what are you getting from either of those that you can’t get from attending the same on Teams/Zoom etc.?
Workshops also just feel like school and the presenters always talk too fast, quiet, or accented for my hearing and ADHD to make it worth me going to one, some dedicated study time always was the better route for me.
Meanwhile strategy sesh’s are just conversations with an end goal, nothing difficult about that at all.
One thing people who are against work from home have to realize is that not everybody functions the same, some people do better remotely, others need the office.
I just wish we could be treated like adults and work in the way we feel most comfortable and efficiently without being mistreated over it and without being astroturfed against it by entities like the Wall St. journal and Bloomberg, sorry rich people but I just don’t give a fuck about your corporate property values.
Okay so what are you getting from either of those that you can’t get from attending the same on Teams/Zoom etc.?
I don’t get the “Bill, we can’t hear you; you’re on mute” twenty times per hour. Or the guy who doesn’t realize he should be muted but isn’t, and the chat is flooded with his background noise. I don’t get to whisper snarky comments about the presenter to my coworker whom I’m sitting next to. I don’t get to spontaneously engage people hanging around the coffee stand between sessions.
There are tangible differences between remote and in-person. As much of an introvert as I am, and as much as I love working remotely, I recognize that I do better collaborative work when I’m in-person. YMMV, but mine doesn’t.
Does your company not do water cooler sessions for your team? Also you can message people during presentations online to gossip. I just did it yesterday to make fun of some idiotic desperation move our execs are getting ready to pull.
When people say “you can’t do X remotely” what they actually mean is they either put no effort into it or they can do it, but it doesn’t feel the same to them, which is a completely different statement.
Okay so what are you getting from either of those that you can’t get from attending the same on Teams/Zoom etc.?
Firstly real human interaction. There is a lot of team building that can occur just from having lunch together. Second, just physically being able to put sticky notes or drawing lines and watching someone else do so without having to have someone try to point out where exactly they put something to you in a virtual whiteboard is way more efficient.
Workshops also just feel like school and the presenters always talk too fast, quiet, or accented for my hearing and ADHD to make it worth me going to one, some dedicated study time always was the better route for me.
Firstly if you just have a presenter talking to you, then that doesn’t sound like a collaborative workshop. Workshops might have someone who guides the discussion but never just presenters otherwise that’s not really a workshop and more just a presentation that can be done online.
Meanwhile strategy sesh’s are just conversations with an end goal, nothing difficult about that at all.
I am not sure what kind of strategy sessions you are having but when you are setting things like commercial STRAP for divisions of 20K or more employees, you need more than just a conversation. You need to draw out roadmaps, have working sessions, even the human interactions through lunches and dinners plays a big part.
One thing people who are against work from home have to realize is that not everybody functions the same, some people do better remotely, others need the office.
It’s not black or white. I am a remote worker who travels regularly. Would I ever give up being remote. No. More than half my job can be done from home and I am not wasting my time travelling to the office. But that doesn’t mean I don’t acknowledge when something is just better in person. Not everything is perfect remote and not everything needs to be done in the office. You can have a mix of both and choose based on the requirements of the task.
Additionally, the type of people who are in positions to set organizational strategy are usually the types of personalities that do function between in person because they are typically extroverted personalities. It’s not like I am suggesting you bring a developer to an on site session. I am talking about leaders.
They should try using Teams, should solve the problem.
Better upgrade them* networks dawg
The fact of the matter is when your company revolves around you being able to communicate and work from anywhere, it is a bad look for you tell people you can’t communicate effectively over the product you make. Anyone who knows business should know this and should know to keep their mouth shut and their policies focused on trying to destroy business.
Makes me feel like someone is paying to or making them do this. If it’s best for ‘THE’ WFH company to WFO, then every company can say it’s best their employees WFO.
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Well that was an impressive way to destroy your entire business model
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Some person in WorkReform was defending mandatory RTO because an office environment was supposedly more secure. I called bullshit on their claims. Apparently a “cybersecurity expert” lol
I don’t care if companies want to waste resources on buying commercial properties. But don’t force people to go back to the stupid office. It worked for the past 3 years. Profits are higher than ever. People got to spend more time with their families since hours were no longer wasted commuting and sitting in traffic.
Also seems like many companies use this culture bullshit as a reason to force RTO. Motherfucker. I produce output. You generate capital. You pay me. That’s our fucking relationship. Fuck your “cUlTuRe”.
Did you have a counter argument for calling bullshit? Because he probably had a point, there is definitely a niche for that level of security. It just generally involves state secrets.
Certain classifications of documents require access only from physically secure locations, called SCIFs, where all access is monitored and logged. Things like phones and cameras aren’t allowed to prevent any data leakage.
That’s not too say you can’t be secure remotely, but really only against outsiders. Good luck stopping an employee from taking a picture with their personal phone of classified blueprints off their monitor at home. Good luck even knowing they did it before the data is gone.
When you factor in social engineering being the most successful type of “hacking”, an office setting is undeniably more secure. However, most offices don’t need that level of security, because data breaches aren’t a matter of national security, so remote is an acceptable risk.
Ya, this guy is toast. He just told the world he thinks his product sucks - the sane know he’s wrong at least.
From a security perspective, the product has sucked for many years now, but it never halted their popularity. If he can survive Apple needing to intervent to remove a web server they installed on people’s machines, he’ll survive this.
It’s not about improving productivity, increasing innovation or ‘sharing best practice’, as a former workplace put it. Corporations are forcing a return to office work in an attempt to curb a post-COVID real estate crash - which we honestly need since we have far too many luxury offices being built and not enough homes.
For one place where I used to work, RTO drove down staff morale to an all-time low (already low due to high workloads and bad wages) and pushed the staff turnover rate in my department to 95%. They ended up having to outsource the function to an overseas firm.
Corporations are pushing RTO because their senior leadership doesn’t know how to lead in a modern system.
I won’t argue some amount of “responding to waste” isn’t there, but this “problem” only exists when the culture isn’t healthy enough to be properly managed remotely, which frankly is not that hard.
“Oh no, how terrible”
- C suite looking at all the salary they’re saving
Why would companies that generally avoid owning real estate act against its own self interest for the profits of real estate companies?? I don’t see the connection.
Lots of companies and executives invest in real estate. They see their holdings dwindling and decide its time for the unwashed masses to get their asses back in the office
there might be exceptions. but as a rule tech companies AVOID investing in real estate.
This has always been the method. I’ve worked in startups for years, and there’s always a game-changing pivot that causes a staff exodus. They replace the with contractors until the company succeeds in the pivot or crashes and burns.
Return to office is just a pivot. If the talent leaves and gets replaced, hopefully their leadership can right the ship. Otherwise it’s those who departed who made the right call.
and pushed the staff turnover rate in my department to 95%. They ended up having to outsource the function to an overseas firm.
Sounds like their reason behind implementing the RTO plan was successful then.
I don’t want to ‘get to know’ my coworkers. I’m not there for friendships, or a pseudo family. I’m there to do a job and be paid for it.
But, this might just be my introvert side.
It makes me wonder if there’s a deeper reason besides the real estate thing, that compels CEOs to try to bring workers back to the office.
Consider: If you’re at the office, you form stronger attachments to your coworkers. You’re more likely to make friends with them and so on. You create bonds. Another way to say this is: you create ties that bind you to your job.
Now, you could use all those extra commute hours to make friends with non-coworkers, and then you don’t lose much in terms of social life. But if you did that, you’d want more time with those friends. You’d have bonds that pull you away from your job instead of into it. There’s a reason employee satisfaction surveys always ask if you have any friends at work.
If you have the time and motivation to form friendships outside of work, you’re going to want more time outside of work. And things like 4-day work weeks. And unions will help you get more time away from work, too.
CEOs don’t want you to form bonds outside of work. Only inside of work. Marry your job, they say. Come worship here, as it is a church.
That makes so much sense.
My pre pandemic job was amazing because of the people I worked with. They were great fun and we would also go out together at the weekend.
After lockdown load sof people moved on to higher paid roles as did I.
My last 2 jobs have been friendless, even the hybrid one because even if you’re in the office, others are out so you’re still not forming relationships.
It would have worked better if it was an “everybody works from home Monday and Friday” but that removes all the flex…
Today in my remote job I have no work friends, but I also got a dog, spend loads of time with my new friends (neighbours who also have dogs), am completing a full time degree while working full time bacuse I have no commute and generally I’m significantly happier.
My house is actually tidy too because my 5 min breaks are tidy up breaks rather than piss about distracting someone else breaks.
Some of the best relationships in ny life have been with people I’ve worked with. It’s the one thing I miss a lot since we started working from home.
Still not worth going into the office, lol. The freedom is too good. But working from home does sort of mess up the work/life balance. I’m basically always on call these days and don’t have a set routine.
Sometimes that means not working much for a day or two and then working until 11pm on others. Whereas at the office I typically left at a quarter to 5 and turned work off in my brain until tomorrow 9:30am after the first coffee at work.
Having said all that, I encourage people to try and be friendly with their coworkers. Networking and friendships are valuable things. Both for your career and also just fulfillment. I found that the consistently best way to get raises and promotions in a company is simply to have most people you interact with like you.
And that really isn’t hard to do, just takes a bit of authentic conversation and positive vibes. Seriously. If you want to make more money and advance your career - be likeable. It will get you a magnitude more than hard work alone. (Although of course hard work doesn’t hurt)
No it is not your introvert side it’s the side that knows your value. You know you can provide the same (or more!) value out of office than you do trapped in some fucking open floor plan that’s constantly loud and distracting.
This is just corporate bullshit for “go fuck yourselves we want more control over you and want to do it in our fancy building again”
They want to usher in bullshit like THIS: https://www.businessinsider.com/jpmorgan-chase-employees-describe-fear-mass-workplace-data-surveillance-wadu-2022-5?op=1
If they wanna do crazy tracking they don’t need you in the office. They can just force you to install Spyware on your computer and send you a Logitech Webcam that needs to stay on.
I’m glad I’ve always worked for sane companies. At the end of the day, you gotta treat the employees like adults. If you feel they aren’t doing enough, fire them. Don’t try and micromanage. But megacorps probably do see some minor bonuses to productivity otherwise they wouldn’t do it.
It’s just not worth the headache for regular companies, I think.
Offices are cages for humans, no less than that. They want to own us.
He’s not wrong, remote meetings do suck for getting to know your coworkers, but that’s not a great reason for rtw
As an introvert he’s very wrong. Let me be a hermit and work in peace.
I legit use my remote meetings to get to know my team. If there’s not too much work to talk about
It’s purely about control. WFH is cheaper and more efficient.
WFH being taken from folks is just about real estate. Yet another reason why capitalism is gonna kill us all. You know how you get a bunch of cars off of the road? WFH.
It’s not going to kill us. It will all correct as other companies displace these that aren’t able to maintain competitive advantage. It just takes time.
Covid threw a wrench in the works that forced change faster than the establishment was ready to take on. The data is out there, the costs and benefits are evident and transparent. Those in positions of power only adjust when there is no other option left… and it’s coming… but it takes time…
There are three other options:
- Good Public Transit
- Somewhat working Public Transit + escooter
- Ebikes
Those things are fine, but don’t negate the problem of pointlessly being required to travel to a pointless office.
I don’t negate, but this also solves how to travel to relatives.
You’re not wrong but all those things require costly infrastructure changes whereas many jobs can be wfh right now with no upfront cost required.
Both would be cool though
Third option does not require new infrastructure even if you don’t have PT. Just make city-wide limit in 30 km/h, then maybe ban cars.
Capitalism is gonna save us.
I mean, the guy that heads Teams literally said meetings and subsequent overuse of Teams due to ease of making and doing meetings, is a productivity killer.
I agree. The problem is meetings.
The meetings I’m forced to go to at work almost always have nothing to do with my actual job, but do include the owner telling us how much money the company is making in chart and graph form for 20 minutes, which helpfully reminds me that I’m being severely underpaid.
Yes, I am preparing my resume.
And the idiots who schedule many of them…
Sounds like to many meetings. Can’t do work at a meeting.
I can. Have a meeting in Citrix and I happily work while people yabber on in the background.
The real killer is the face to face meetings. My group supervisor now demands anyone in the office on a particular day go into his office for the team meeting. That’s a real time waster.
People online can’t hear us properly standing around in his office. Can’t get work done while standing in there.
Just let me work from home so I don’t have a bunch of people wander over to me to ask stupid questions during the day.
If you want something send me an email and I’ll get to it when I have time. Walking into my space, making me take my noise cancelling headphones off so you can yabber at me and break my concentration is so annoying.
I’m untouchable at home. I work until I need a break, then quickly sort questions and queries, then get back into my groove for another hour or two.
