Hall of Shame
Updated 2024-09-18. Originally published 2024-05-05.
The Hall of Shame is for people and employers who say retro, mistrustful, and anti-employee things about remote employment. Before anyone writes to me to tell me that “overemployment” (working two full-time jobs), “quiet quitting,”’ and “lazy girl jobs” are evidence that remote employment is problematic, know that I consider these to be side effects of leadership failures, not specifically problems of remote employment. I don’t believe the advantages of remote employment are outweighed by some workplace management challenges.
Amazon
Amazon employees were stunned and horrified when CEO Andy Jassy mandated everyone to return to the office five days per week starting January 2, 2025. He said, “We want to operate like the world’s largest startup … you need to be joined at the hip with your teammates when inventing and solving hard problems …” “Joined at the hip?”
Every Amazon employee I know is now job hunting for a new remote job.
Dell
In a stunning reversal of their previous pro-WFH stance, Dell leadership announced that fully remote employees are no longer eligible for promotion. As reported by Ars Technica, Michael Dell had said previously, “If you are counting on forced hours spent in a traditional office to create collaboration and provide a feeling of belonging within your organization, you’re doing it wrong."
Uhm, maybe Mr. Dell should have stuck with his original convictions.
Grindr
Grindr lost almost half its staff after giving workers two weeks to choose between relocating to their respective team’s newly assigned “hub” city to work in-person twice a week or leave the company with severance. (Source: CNN)
Guess they want to run their company with 50% of the staff.
Louis V. Gerstner, Jr., retired chairman and CEO of IBM Corp., current chairman of Gerstner Philanthropies
Gerstner said, “It is time to deflate the hot-air balloon known as remote work. We have lurched, in an almost lemming-like way, from a view that work is done five days a week in an office to the fantasy that it is perfectly acceptable to stay home two, three or even five days a week … The class of employees for whom working in a solitary setting is highly detrimental is people who aspire to lead or manage others in an academic, nonprofit, governmental or business institution. One learns how to manage and lead principally by watching others demonstrate how—or how not—to do so.” (Source: WSJ (requires a subscription)
Out of touch much, Mr. Gerstner?
Michael Bloomberg, CEO of Bloomberg
Bloomberg said he can’t work with anyone over Zoom, that remote workers are less productive than in-person workers because remote workers are out playing golf, and that remote work is “tragic.” (Source: TheStreet)
So much wrong with this, I have no words.
Nicolas Hieronimus, CEO of L’Oréal
Hieronimus said he knows of remote workers who have “absolutely no attachment, no passion, no creativity.” He called in-office work “vital” and criticized remote work for its risk of being “damaging to mental health.” (Source: TheStreet)
I’m guessing Mr. Hieronimus is not an expert on mental health.
Paul Graham, Entrepreneur and Venture Capitalist
Graham said that early positive feelings about remote work have faded. He said, “Why were all these smart people fooled? Partly I think because remote work does work initially, if you start with a system already healthy from in-person work … and partly because it seemed to solve recruiting, which is always a bottleneck.” (Source: Yahoo! Finance)
Guess again, Mr. Graham.
Reed Hastings, CEO of Netflix
Hastings called remote employment a “pure negative.” He is famous for saying he expected Netflix employees to return to the office “12 hours after a (COVID-19) vaccine is approved.” (Source: Reworked.co)
Sigh.
If you learn of other people or employers who should be included here, please send them to me.
