This is a belter of an interview with Zoom chief people officer around their mandated return to office for 2 days a week.
Explaining the ‘why’ behind the mandate
Those two in-office days for local workers are filled with meaningful in-person work, like training and all-hands meetings, with a simple after-work drink added in. “But I don’t think people need that all the time,” Saxon noted. “A sprinkle of in-person work every so often can really help, but again, we found people coming into the office to do their individual contributor work. In that case, there’s no real difference if you’re sitting on a Zoom call.”
To be sure, those other value adds, like relationship-building and networking, are inarguably valuable. But solo workers are nonetheless “certainly very effective through pure Zoom-only engagement and interaction,” Saxon said.
“I think we can very, very efficiently get things done,” without an office, Saxon said. But should they, like Zoom corporate, make the return-to-office move, it must be deliberate—and the decision makers need to show their work. “Thoughtfulness is crucial,” he advised.
When the decision to return to the office was made, shortly after Saxon’s arrival, Zoom employees wanted to know the “why,” he recalled. So the team told them. “We had a good, honest conversation about our products, our customer base, and how we’ll improve,” he said. “When we had a more laissez-faire approach to coming in on certain days, it was sub-optimized, and we heard that from employees. So we said, ‘Okay, well, let’s try this different model.’ I think it’s been a good success.”
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Then there’s Saxon himself, who works fully remotely from Austin. “I think I can manage people at Zoom effectively while working fully remotely,” he told Fortune. “I go into the office from time to time, obviously, for my role, but the majority of the time, I’m home.”
Do as I say, not as I do
Because the shit’s so deep, you can’t run away
I beg to differ, on the contrary
Agree with every word that you say
Talk is cheap and lies are expensive
My wallet’s fat and so is my head
Hit and run and then I’ll hit you again
A smart ass, but I’m playing dumb
Standards set and broken all the time
Control the chaos behind the gun
Call it as I see it, even if
I was born deaf, blind and dumb
Losers winning big on the lottery
Rehab rejects still sniffing glue
Constant refutation with myself
A victim of a Catch-22
I have no belief
But I believe I’m a walking contradiction
And I ain’t got no right
I know of a company where they have to do minimum 7 days over 2 weeks and it’s monitored by swipe so a lad comes in Sunday after his kids soccer, parks up, goes for breakfast and toddles back and just does a Tuesday and Wednesday during the week.
My son is doing a three month internship this summer. He has to be in the office 5 days a month. None of his team live in Krakow. I was out with the dog early last friday and when i came back around 7:15 he wasn’t home. The missus asked „where is he”? I said no idea. He arrived back home around 9. He’d gone in to swipe the access card because he’d only been in 4 days and he was afraid it’d affect his payroll!
