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Senior executives at Google and Microsoft have got a similar message for staff left concerned by Amazon’s recent five-day return-to-office (RTO) mandate: You can keep hybrid work, unless productivity drops.
According to reports from outlets including Business Insider released this week, Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai and Microsoft EVP of Cloud & AI Group Scott Guthrie both address concerns from workers at recent internal meetings.
Amazon’s move to mandate workers back to the office sparked concerns for workers across the tech industry about whether their employer would follow suit.
What have Google and Microsoft told staff about hybrid work?
At Google’s most recent “TGIF” (Thank God It’s Friday) town hall meeting, employees looked for reassurance about the future of hybrid work.
One of the most popular questions asked at the monthly meeting was whether Google would reaffirm its commitment to its hybrid working model – three days per week in-office – following Amazon’s mandate.
According to Business Insider, John Casey, VP of Global Compensation at Google told staff that the current model remained in place but emphasized the need for employees to comply with the system by attending a Google office at least three days per week.
Pichai followed up by noting the importance of Googlers maintaining their productivity while working from home for the business to keep the flexible model in place.
Meanwhile, Guthrie recently promised staff that Microsoft has no current plans to make like Amazon and call staff back into the office full time.
Two Microsoft employees who attended the meeting similarly told Business Insider that employees heard Guthrie’s guarantee only applies if productivity continues to remain high.
‘Productivity’: The buzzword defining the RTO conversation
As tech giants like Amazon, Salesforce, and Dell have called all employees or specific teams back to the office five days a week, there has been much conversation about how and where people can best do their work.
Business leaders like Amazon CEO Andy Jassy say that in-office work offers a level of energy, collaboration, and speed that is missing when employees work from home. Executives at Dell echoed this in a memo calling all sales staff back to the office full-time, stating: “Our data shows that sales teams are more productive when onsite.”
Similarly, although leadership at Microsoft and Google have ruled out five-day RTO mandates any time soon, the ‘productivity’ caveat is hard to ignore.
Other experts have criticized business leaders for suggesting that in-office work is inherently better for productivity than remote or hybrid work. Barbara Matthews, CPO at Remote, told HR Grapevine following Amazon’s RTO announcement: “An increasing number of large corporations are making the mistake of rowing back on flexible work policies, signalling a belief that employees need to be physically present and monitored by managers in order to be productive.”
According to Matthews, this can result in mistrust and resentment between management and employees, in turn negatively impacting productivity. Amazon has received significant backlash from staff following the mandate, with many employees reporting they will look for new roles.
Microsoft’s Senior Director of IT, Keith Boyd, also commented on the power of remote working so long as it is successfully executed in a company blog post.
"If you make the time to do it right, your employees will be more engaged, more productive, and more connected, even when they're miles away," he wrote in August. "And they'll be far less likely to leave for a competitor who has a more sophisticated and flexible model than you do."
As businesses increasingly reevaluate where and when their employees work, it seems ‘productivity’ will never be far away from the conversation. HR leaders should be prepared to discuss whatever policy they believe is best in these terms as they advise and support other business leaders throughout that journey.
