Last week, Elon Musk mandated a return to the office policy for Tesla workers, “Anyone who wishes to do remote work must be in the office for a minimum (and I mean *minimum*) of 40 hours per week or depart Tesla.”
What problem is Elon trying to solve?
Those who refuse, “should pretend to work somewhere else?” Musk posted on Twitter.
So Elon thinks that remote workers are goofing off and not working at 100% capacity. His solution is to get everyone back to the office so that they can be seen to work i.e. monitored.
Very 1980s. Pre-internet. Also much easier for project managers to do their jobs.
But you are not a billionaire CEO who can mandate such a policy.
You likely have a hybrid team of fully remote and semi-remote workers
Spread around the world and across time zones
Like Musk, you wonder if some of them are actually working at capacity.
How do you know if they sign onto virtual meetings
But never say anything, never post anything
Are they really there?
Are they fully engaged?
Some of them are introverted individual contributors
You don’t know if they are struggling
And sometimes, you only know when it’s too late
At the due date, or after the due date.
You need to be able to build strong virtual relationships
With your remote team members
One PM went as far as engaging
and eventually married a remote team member
Who lived in another country
If that can happen
There is no reason PMs can’t build virtual teams
Who are equally
If not more engaged than in-person teams
I can help you nurture a solid virtual team
So you no longer have to worry
If they are pretending to work
To only abandon you near the deadline.
So now, are you ready to leave the 1980s
Back to the office culture
And become a 21st century PM of the future?
Source: https://www.cnn.com/2022/06/01/tech/elon-musk-tesla-ends-work-from-home/index.html