After fully embracing — or at least cautiously tolerating — the remote-work policies that the pandemic forced upon them, tech CEOs have become far less keen on the practice in recent months.
Earlier in June, Meta announced that workers must go into the office three days a week, beginning September 5. The company originally said it was on board with remote-work culture, but since March it's been instructing managers to stop posting jobs with a remote option, Insider reported.
Apple has always been stricter than some of its peers about staff returning to its office, as Insider previously reported. The company has been monitoring employees to ensure they show up at the office at least three days a week. Staff who don't comply would be given "escalating warnings," Platformer's Zoë Schiffer said in March.
Google is also cracking down on hybrid workers who try to dodge the company's mandate to show up at least three days a week. In an email sent to staff last week, which was reviewed by Insider, Google said office attendance would be a factor in employees' performance reviews.
Twitter's former CEO Parag Agrawal memorably announced in 2022 that he'd continue the option of working from home "forever." Elon Musk's takeover quickly brought that promise crashing down.
Musk has criticized remote work on several occasions and recently called it "morally wrong." He accused the "laptop classes" of living "in la-la land." Martha Stewart has also weighed in on the productivity of remote workers, saying: "You can't possibly get everything done working three days a week in the office and two days remotely."
Mandates to work in the office are generally unpopular with employees. More than half of US workers who are fully remote would be willing to take a pay cut rather than return to the office, a recent poll from The Washington Post and Ipsos found.
Amazon workers have been some of the most vocal critics of the new demands. Last month, workers planned a walkout to address the company's return-to-office demands, among other issues, according to The Washington Post.
The employer backlash against remote work follows a period of upheaval in the tech industry. The sector has been savaged by mass layoffs, which appear to have tipped the balance of power back to employers after a widely reported talent war and mass resignations last year.
