‘Office centricity over’
Wary of being unable to compete with big tech names and not wanting to disrupt workers who had grown accustomed to logging on from their kitchen table or wherever their travels took them, startups seemed poised to let staff work remotely forever, too.A recent report from jobs site Indeed found that out of the number of Canadians who had some form of hybrid work arrangement, just shy of 60 per cent were fully remote, down from 75 per cent a year earlier.
Video-conferencing pioneer Zoom Inc. asked employees who live within 80 kilometres of its offices to be on site two days a week in August. Data captured by Meta showed engineers who either joined the company in-person and then transferred to remote or remained in-person performed better on average than people who joined remotely. Engineers earlier in their career perform better on average when they work in-person with teammates at least three days a week, the company also concluded.
Amazon.com Inc.’s Andy Jassy appears to agree. The chief executive officer reportedly told staff in late August “But getting workers back to the office should be about collaboration rather than career advancement, said Marta Max. The executive operations manager at Nanoleaf, a Toronto-based smart home technology company, tells staff that face time does not equal more or fewer promotions.