In an email, shared being circulated on Twitter, Elon Musk wrote: "Anyone who wishes to do remote work must be in the office for a minimum of 40 hours per week or depart Tesla."
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Can't be mad at Ford folks going to Tesla. There are many Ford LL4+ that went to other companies for higher leadership positions. Tesla it letting people go, Ford does that very often and has significant age bias.
Looks like Tesla is targeting 10% headcount reduction.
Tesla is running pretty lean
Ford is running fat and top heavy and has huge debt burden; I would not be surprised to see 25% white collar headcount cut this summer.
Is Elon right or wrong? It's his company so he makes the rules. I WFH and I am much more productive than from the office as many people have brought up here. My drive, being 30 miles could take upward of 90 minutes depending on traffic, accidents and all this freakin' road construction. (Both ways.) (I am still in southeast MI after being SRD'd by Ford in 2019.) The drive in has the potential of putting me in a foul mood for the day. WFH keeps me in a mellow mood and I even put in extra hours that is beneficial to my company. I start early and may stay later depending on my workload. (I can usually meet all my goals in 6 hours because I have no distractions.) WFH gives me back about 10 hours of 'my' time every week.
I believe that most people working from home are less productive. since they have more distractions and less supervision. Unless the worker is very motivated or disciplined, working from home is not that good for the company. Furthermore, the more interaction and guidance the worker requires, the less productive is working from home.
However, there are a couple of points I'd like to make in favor of WFH. For "thinkers" and independent workers (scientists, programmers, designers, architects, engineers, etc.), the office is full of interruptions and noises. I have seen people (and done it myself) to start very early or stay longer in the office, just to be able to get the work done. Some of these people also stay longer working when they are at home, but end producing more and benefiting the company.
The company culture is very important as well. I have worked in fast paced environments, with knowledgeable people and it is a pleasure to be in the office. However, if I have to go back to the office at Ford, I'd prefer finding another job. There is no point for FMC white collar employees to go back to the office when we have a lot of meetings and tasks that are not productive at all. Besides, the deadwood is not really working at the office or from home, so it won't make a difference. At least at home, I don't have to deal with most of those.
Tell me you’re doing layoffs without telling me you’re doing layoffs…looks like Tesla may be having some headcount issues.
I would support a return to the office. The problem? They have decommissioned too many buildings! Itek is gone. TPM is gone. Our new building could never accommodate our entire group, neither with parking nor with number of desks. So if Ford is going to do this they better start reopening, reacquiring, and preparing more buildings in order to do this!
Don't forget, Ford is saving millions of dollars now not having to have as many buildings running and maintained. Everything that goes into them too: water, power, HVAC, furnture, cleaning and maintenance, security, etc. So bring it on. Tell me where to report and where my desk is. I would support return to the office, no problem. The question is, can/will the company?
@1qwv+1h1blnJD You're spot on. I'm more familiar with tech stuff and troubleshooting so I used to help a lot of my coworkers on the old team with issues but it's so much harder to do that remote. WebEx has a remote in feature but it's unusably slow.
I am way more productive at home without a lot of distractions, but I know some people have said it's hard to stay motivated sitting at home day in and day out or just aren't comfortable enough with the technology to stay engaged. Lot of positives and negatives, but I'd prefer to stay WFH going forward. I think if we had to start going in, I'd probably look elsewhere. I just think of all of the wasted time commuting every week, and the cost (gas, especially now/eating out) I've saved, and that I can do the exact same job with better results at home. Just doesn't make sense to go in, but some other areas really need that face-to-face interaction to function well.
It all depends on perspective.
While working in the office I offset my work hours so I either came into work 2 hours before anyone else or left 2 hours after everyone else. Those were the only 2 hours I got any of my work done. The type of work I do requires deep thought and quiet uninterrupted time to do it. When WFH I get more work done in a day than I did in a week in the office.
Now on the flip side, all the people who queued up at my desk for assistance and guidance are less efficient with WFH. They had an easy mechanism to get a quick white board lesson on whatever issue they were stumbling with. In addition management can’t drop by with questions about projects. I find with WFH, youngsters are comfortable with virtual meetings and virtual whiteboards, but the rest are simply sitting and twirling instead of asking for guidance.
But bonus, management never gave me credit for all the guidance I was doing so now I am doing 5X work they evaluate me on, while the rest of the team is much less productive at WFH.
@1vry
I would not be surprised if Farley copies Musk, he equates Musks’s words with angels:
When the second quarter profit in 2021 came out from Tesla, Farley said, “it totally changed my world. It was an epiphany. It was, like, the angels sung.”
🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡
Watch Ford do the same thing Haha
A request like that is a great way to get headcount reductions.
Heh heh....this might just make some defectors come crawling back to Ford. And I knew a few that got walked out of Ford to go to Tesla since 2014.
If I were Ford HR, I'd tell those supplicants thanks but no thanks. Then let them be mad and demoralized at Elon and Tesla corporate, and watch Tesla quality and engineering fall even worse than it is now.
Ford might even look the smart one here. How about that.
Elon is not wrong. I am more productive WFH, but I will admit that the increased productivity is in MY favor, not the company’s