Musk opposes remote work: checking attendance in the middle of the night and notifying all Tesla employees to work at least 8 hours a day

Jin Lei from Aofei Temple
Quantum Bit | Official Account: QbitAI

Want to work remotely ?

Musk told his employees:

Then spend 40 hours in the office first .

Converted to five working days, that means you have to stay in the office for 8 hours every day.

If a deadline had to be added to this request, Musk hoped it would be "at least . "

(Are you sure it’s not overtime?

This is the latest bombshell to emerge from Tesla's internal emails.

Musk also added in the email:

If you fail to do so, you will be deemed to have resigned .

Musk's request for remote work instantly sparked heated discussions online.

Netizens' comments on this can be said to be full of the flavor of "listening to your words is like listening to your words" ...

Musk: You have to spend 40 hours a week at the company

There are a total of 2 emails exposed this time .

The title of the first email is Remote work is no longer acceptable .

The message Musk wants to convey is very direct: remote work is no longer acceptable.

Anyone who wants to work remotely must be in the office 40 hours a week (minimum) or they will be fired.

Musk believes this amount of time is less than what Tesla requires of its factory workers.

Of course, he also gave an "impossible" exception .

If there are special contributors, he will personally review and approve them.

Musk also emphasized the concept of this "office" - it must be Tesla's main office (main Tesla office) .

For example, your job is to handle interpersonal relationships with factory employees in Fremont, California, but you are in another state.

Then you also have to go to the main office in your state to work.

Judging from the recipient information of this email , "ExecStaff" , Musk was issuing an ultimatum to Tesla's management.

But the second email that followed was addressed to almost all Tesla employees .

The same time requirement, the same "dismissal warning", this time the target is directly changed to "Everyone at Tesla" .

Musk also emphasized that the higher your position, the more visible your presence (in the office) .

And he also explained the reason behind this statement by example:

That's why I often live in factories.

That way those guys on the line can see me working right next to them.

If I hadn't done that, Tesla would have gone bankrupt a long time ago.

…

So the next question is:

Why does Musk make such a request?

In the second email, Musk gave his own views on the disguised refusal to work from home/remotely.

First, Musk admitted that some companies do not require employees to go to the office to work.

But then he raised a big question:

When was the last time they launched a great new product?

Musk gave a direct answer - haven't seen it for a long time.

In his view, Tesla has and will continue to create the most exciting and meaningful products in the world.

Musk believes that these achievements "are not achieved by making phone calls . "

In fact, this is not the first time that Musk has been exposed for publicly opposing remote work.

Just last month, for example, he expressed his disgust with American employees "trying to avoid going to work altogether" in an interview with the Financial Times.

At that time, he also made a comparison with Chinese employees:

China has a lot of super talented and hard-working people who have a strong belief in manufacturing.

They don't even want to leave the factory, and in the United States, people don't want to go to work at all.

And just a few days ago, Musk expressed his opinion in a reply tweet that "employees working from home will make them feel that they don't actually need to work hard."

There are also different opinions

However, economists have a completely different view from Musk on remote work.

For example, Natacha Postel-Vinay, an economic and financial historian at the London School of Economics, argues:

Most evidence suggests that productivity increases when people work from home.

Because in this way, employees can save commuting time, and use some of it to do more work, and some of it to sleep and spend time with their families.

Coincidentally, economic history professor Albrecht Ritschl also put forward a similar view.

He also believes:

Working in an office and working hard are two different things.

In addition, since the outbreak of the global epidemic, technology giants have also successively introduced relevant regulations on working from home.

Companies like Google, Airbnb, and Twitter have even implemented permanent remote work policies.

There are also many "hybrid office" models that only require going to the company for 3 days.

Microsoft also conducted a survey of 9,000 managers and employees in Europe. The report showed:

At least 82% of managers believe that remote work does not affect productivity.

Among them, 44% of managers believe that their company’s productivity is higher than before after starting remote work.

Of course, efficiency is only one of the topics that need to be discussed in remote work; stress issues cannot be ignored either.

For example, recently there have been frequent reports online about topics such as "super long standby time" and "entering working mode 10 minutes earlier" .

There are even reports that some companies require employees to stay at home and take facial photos every five minutes. If they do not take 89 photos, it will be considered as absenteeism.

So, are you for or against working from home?

Welcome to leave a message in the comment area to discuss~

Reference Links:

[1]https://twitter.com/SamNissim/status/1531810291222192130
[2]https://twitter.com/techemails/status/1531994582669348864?t=M2QUC4cqnQUMzRsgDy4FIw
[3]https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2022/06/musk-to-tesla-and-spacex-workers-be-in-the-office-40-hours-a-week-or-quit/
[4]https://finance.sina.com.cn/tech/2022-06-02/doc-imizirau6124176.shtml
[5]https://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-americans-avoid-going-to-work-unlike-chinese-workers-2022-5