More Big Tech Employees Return to Office — What Happens Next?

As the world tries to get back to pre-pandemic life, tech companies are looking to house their employees once again. But will work ever be the same in the tech industry?

Traditionally, employees work on-site where they can be closer to the business operation or to each other. It fosters collaboration, allows employees to be easily monitored, and makes employees feel that they share a common mission. Aside from these practical reasons, on-site work is just very much ingrained in the culture.

Noticeably, these benefits may tend to only be for the employer's bottom line and not for the employee's wellness. But the pandemic has forced enterprises to explore a work-from-home setup where workers can tend to their individual needs while on the clock.

Big Tech Employees Return to Office

Approximately two years after the closing down of their physical offices, companies are looking to revert back to the old normal and bring back their employees.

Now that there is already plenty of data on different setups, they will have to decide. Round up employees back to the office? Or continue the work-from-home setup?

Tech companies say yes to both.

Twitter and Google were one of the notable tech giants to first announce the plan to open their offices. Apple followed suit along with others that include Facebook and Netflix. Most have their eyes set on March or April to implement the changes.

However, most of these tech giants have the same on-site work policy where it would only be an option for some employees depending on various reasons like health, position, and responsibility.

For example, Google's policy would include a hybrid work style where employees may be required to on-site work only three days a week. Google spokesperson Lora Lee Erickson shared that the company will utilize the whole month of March to help their employees transition.

The data reveals that most Google employees are excited to return to work.

Twitter has emphasized that going back to the normal office setup will be entirely employees' choice. The announcement was made by CEO Parag Agrawal in a tweet.

The social media company plans to reopen offices on March 15.

As for Netflix, CEO Reed Hastings is explicitly against the idea of working from home. "Not being able to get together in person, particularly internationally, is a pure negative," he said in an interview with the Wall Street Journal. This suggests that on-site work would be mandatory as soon as possible but the exact Netflix policies are yet to be known.

Work Flexibility Is the Future of Tech . . . or Is It?

Many tech leaders are convinced that work flexibility and an employee-first policy are the future. But unknown to most, work flexibility and acknowledgment of a work-life balance have already been in existence way before. In 1998, it was known as the alternative workplace (AW), non-traditional work settings that supplement traditional offices. The benefits of the AW programs have been largely the same as the benefits of modern work flexibility.

Because the internet was not as optimized then, AW programs mostly applied to telemarketing jobs. But now that technology allowed employees to easily collaborate through various digital tools for remote work like Zoom, Google Meet, etc., it seems that employers have no excuse but to embrace workplace flexibility.

Annie Dean, former head of remote work for Facebook, expressed displeasure against companies who force employees to return to work in contravention of the work-life balance movement. "That's just not going to be the way that we go forward," Dean told the Wall Street Journal.

A global scale, cross-sectional study conducted last year generally supported the concept of work flexibility in software companies. The results suggest that the work-from-home setup has some positive outcomes.

These are some notable answers when the respondents (company representatives) were asked about the effects of the setup:

• "Employees do not have to spend hours to commute"
• "Companies could reduce spending on office infrastructure"
• "It has sharpened our focus on delivery and generally been positive output"

However, the study reveals that software projects were slowed down due to the change in the work setup. One response was, "We have to close down parts of the business, there was a slowdown."

Overall, there was a mixed perceived impact of work flexibility at individual and team levels. But the study suggests that current challenges can still be fixed by looking into the management and coordination mechanisms of software companies.

Despite the mixed outcome of the study, public perception and the image portrayed by tech giant executives look to strengthen work flexibility. The only answer left to be solved is how to implement the optimum work setting.

"We're moving into a world now where leaders have to be so aware of every employee individually, what they need and how they work best," Francine Katsoudas, an executive at Cisco, told the Wall Street Journal. "So there isn't a one-size-fits-all with work."