“Tech companies were never designed for remote work”

Even during the pandemic, the tech world was saying: Remote work is welcome! Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg told Bloomberg that he’s found “more room for long-term thinking” while working from home. He also spent more time with his family, which made him “happier and more productive” at work. Amazon CEO Andy Jassy said enthusiastically on stage at the Code conference in Los Angeles: “We don’t plan to ask people to come back.”

Not much is left of these statements now. Both Facebook and Amazon have now changed their attitude and openness has given way to clear reservations. For Uwe Peter, Managing Director of Cisco Systems in Germany, that’s no wonder. In an interview with t3n, he says: “Many tech companies were never designed for remote work.”

“For many years, it was quite normal for companies to drive their employees to company headquarters in their own buses to ensure that everyone was actually there,” says Uwe Peter. “The whole culture was geared towards the fact that creativity only occurs when everyone is in one room.” In view of this, he can understand that many tech companies such as Facebook and Amazon, but also other companies such as Apple, Google and Co, feel a “certain urge to go back to the old ways”.

In principle, both – the office and also the home office – are possible to work productively, but he makes it clear that it is not a good idea to ignore the needs of potential employees, especially in view of the shortage of skilled workers. “It’s a bit like climate change, which you have to accept to a certain extent. We also have to accept that people no longer just want to work in offices.” Uwe Peter urges a constructive approach.

The new office duties in many places also mean that quite a few people are currently changing jobs on their own. This saves tech companies a lot of money in times of mass layoffs in the form of saved severance payments, but it is clear to him that there will be a time after the crisis and that non-local work will again become an argument in recruiting. “I can well imagine that the pendulum will then swing in a different direction and that we will see more concessions again.”

For Uwe Peter, dealing with a sustainable remote culture is therefore a business imperative. “Companies are doing themselves a disservice by not responding to this New Normal.” Labor market experts agree that the skills shortage is one of the biggest challenges companies will face in the coming decades. In the IT sector in particular, the shortage of skilled workers has been growing rapidly for years. In Germany, Bitkom is currently assuming a shortage of 137,000 workers.