Tech remains divided over the office

Tech companies are well-known to have weird and whacky benefits – ranging from nap pods, free laundry services, unlimited vacation days, to on-site chef-cooked meals.

Of course, many of these benefits are confined to office spaces that tech giants have carefully designed to be collaborative, and fun. All of this was complicated by the COVID-19 pandemic, and enforced home working.

Tech employers enabled remote work for its employees very quickly – and, unlike swathes of the financial sector, acknowledged the benefits of flexible working for productivity and employee morale in the long-term.

There was a lot of indecision around return to office requests or mandates in 2021 and 2022.

However, as the world approaches the third anniversary of COVID-19 being declared a pandemic and the sector is facing significant headwinds that have led to 265,000 tech workers losing their jobs since 2022, tech companies remain divided on what the future of work should look like.

Research may suggest that hybrid is the future, but tech employers fundamentally disagree on the role the office will play in their future.

In the past few days, various tech giants have made opposing announcements about the future of remote work. Let’s take a look.

Activision, Walmart bet on the office

Gaming giant Activision Blizzard has joined the likes of Snap and Disney in leaning into the role of the office in the future of work.

As reported by Fortune, by July 2022, employees at Activision Blizzard will be required to be in the office three days a week.

The reason is the need for “real-time, in-person collaboration”, and doing “what’s best for our business and our teams”. Harvard Business Review research found that game companies who embraced remote work saw 4 times more delays than before the pandemic.

This has come as a shock to employees, given that Activision Blizzard was such a proponent of remote work early in the pandemic.

Walmart has taken an even more dramatic approach. It has closed three of its 14 US tech hubs, and is requiring its tech workers to relocate so they can return to the office two days a week, according to the Wall Street Journal.

The employer will pay severance to those who chose to leave (rather than relocate), and will cover the costs of those who do chose to move across the country.

This move comes on the back of layoffs at Walmart in August 2022, which impacted corporate employees, including those working in tech.

Twitter, GitHub go remote

In comparison, Elon Musk, a long-time critic of remote work (he previously told Tesla workers to return to the office or “pretend to work somewhere else”), has U-turned and is now a fan of remote work at Twitter.

Forbes has reported that Musk’s new-found approach is linked with the need for Twitter to continue to cut costs following mass layoffs. Musk has decided to shut down its Seattle and Singapore offices and instruct workers to work from home.

Microsoft has fully embraced hybrid work over the past three years. For Microsoft this means more than just where people work, but also how and when they work.

While offices will play a role in Microsoft’s future, its subsidiary GitHub has closed all of its offices and transitioned into being a fully remote company.

The reason is that employees weren’t using the office enough, and so, like Twitter, it was a cost cutting move. GitHub has also announced it will lay off 10% of its workforce.

In a memo to employees, shared by Fortune, CEO Thomas Dohmke wrote: “This decision is a testament to the success of our long-standing remote-first culture.

“We are not vacating offices immediately, but will move to close all of our offices as their leases end or as we are operationally able to do so.

“We will share more workplace details and transition plans with you as they are finalized.”

The future of work is not set in stone – will tech giants change their minds (again) on the office? Stay tuned.

If this article caught your interest, you can find more like it on the future of work here. Enjoy!