This is the best summary I could come up with:
At that time, Zoom chief financial officer Kelly Steckelberg cited an internal survey showing that about 85 percent of employees who work remotely “want it to stay that way.”
It’s still unclear why Zoom settled on a 50-mile radius as its requirement for returning to the office, whether employees can seek exemptions, or if performance reviews will depend on in-office attendance, ComputerWorld reported.
But Business Insider reported that market value has since dropped by at least $100 billion, mostly because so many companies over the past two years began requiring workers to return to the office.
Zoom’s spokesperson said that with more workers in the office, “as a company, we are in a better position to use our own technologies, continue to innovate, and support our global customers.”
Yuan said on an earnings call that building up Zoom’s AI capability is a priority, ComputerWorld reported, and it’s possible it has become an all-hands-on-deck situation.
The future will tell if pivoting to AI and requiring the majority of employees to return to the office are other mistakes for Zoom or necessary business moves.
I’m a bot and I’m open source!
Microsoft took a lot from them IMO. I use Zoom or Teams even when I’m in the office. I don’t like being hindered by meetings.
“With more people in the office, we are in a better position to use our own technologies”??? What? Do they actually know what their product is?
When you don’t have a good reason for something but you also don’t have to justify your actions, this is the kind of dumb shit you throw at the wall to just make the conversation end.
“Middle management are feeling fragile and insecure and solving that matters more than actual productivity, especially for a company who has a share price history that you could ride a sled down”. There’s a real reason if you want one.
Previously, they can’t test in production because if it cause an outage, zoom employees must use Google Meets to coordinate a fix. If their employees are all in the office, they can push directly to production without fear of being locked out, therefore increasing productivity. /s
Execs are no doubt panicking because the infinite growth they’ve promised as a result of their 2020 finances is starting to look unlikely and they need excuses to cut down on employees
Yup, RTO policies are basically just to reduce headcount without the headlines being “zoom lays off 30% of it’s workforce”
i genuinely dont see who thought that would be worse than ‘zoom has no faith in own product, tells staff to come to office so dont need to use it’
every company at stages goes through layoffs and its always a bad few days of news but shareholders can be placated. what scares them off is a company saying their product is shit
That’s a good way to lose all your top talent.
Don’t let it fool you, they’ll make exceptions to the rule for the ones they want to keep. This is just a way to make their “worst” performers miserable so they quit instead of laying them off. All the shit tech companies are doing it.
As a datapoint from the other side, my company (big tech) is holding the party line no matter what. Lower level engineer or director - if you don’t come in the requisite number of days a week, you’re out. It’s a bafflingly short-sighted move, but company culture is more important than anything apparently.
This really depends. You would think that a company would know who it’s top performers are, but if you are engineer who is more than two managers away from C suite, chances are the person who decides to end your job doesn’t know or give a shit who you are, they just know that your salary is among the higher end. If a company wants to attract top talent they can always do so later
Wow that’s not a good look tbh. Pretty shitty leadership if they can’t even spin it.
