WIf this is the future industry’s ‘progressive’ view of work, then good night!” – “Elon Musk explains the trust he places in his staff: None. Tesla is less and less likely to be an attractive employer.” – “You can’t build cars in a home office. But all the IT that is in a Tesla. (…) After Musk’s statement about the home office, I would quit immediately.” The numerous comments in the short message service Twitter on the latest discussion about the topic of face-to-face work, which Elon Musk, CEO of the electric car manufacturer Tesla, started, read something like this.
The company leader, who is known for his untrustworthy leadership style, had previously threatened Tesla employees with being fired if they did not return to the office from their home office. “Everyone at Tesla needs to be in the office at least 40 hours a week or they can leave Tesla,” he wrote in an email to his executives earlier in the week that later surfaced on social media. Under the subject line “working from home is no longer acceptable,” he said employees would need to return to a Tesla headquarters, not a provincial branch unrelated to the person’s duties. Tesla did not officially confirm the authenticity of the letter that was published. However, Musk himself responded on Twitter to a user who asked what he was saying to people who thought presence was an antiquated concept: “They should pretend to work somewhere else.”
Back to the old presence culture?
The statements are particularly sensitive against the background that Musk intends to take over the short message service Twitter, whose CEO Parag Arawal recently announced complete freedom for his employees with regard to their place of work: “You work wherever you are most creative and productive feels.” Elon Musk’s comments promptly led to a heated discussion on social media, which is still ongoing and revolves around the question: How much presence in the office can and should executives still prescribe desk workers today?
The debate is also gaining momentum in this country in the waning corona wave. “Working after the end of the home office obligation is the crucial question for many companies,” said Inga Dransfeld-Haase of the FAZ the world of work itself.” It is clear that if you want to remain an attractive employer in times of a shortage of skilled workers, you have to give your employees more flexibility in terms of working hours and place of work. “The majority of companies are aware that there is no going back to the old face-to-face culture.” Hybrid working, i.e. a mixture of distance and face-to-face work, is the “New Normal” for employees and HR managers.
Gossip, especially in the tech industry
This is also reflected in numbers. In its regular statistics on home office use, the Ifo Institute in Munich recently reported a slight decline, but the use remains at a high level. In April, the proportion of employees who were at least partially working from home in Germany was around a quarter (24.9 percent), after 27.6 percent in March. Calculated across all positions, the home office potential in Germany is 56 percent. Most companies want to allow their employees to work from home for one to three days a week, according to a representative survey conducted by the ZEW in Mannheim among 1,200 companies from the manufacturing and information industries at the beginning of the year. The BPM also propagates the mixed work model because it combines flexibility with a personal exchange of ideas. “Statements like those of Elon Musk are not known in our membership,” says Dransfeld-Haase.
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