[Global Focus] "Quit the Company" vs "Old Workstyles"... US Wall Street and Silicon Valley Struggle with Remote Work

Companies Face the Challenge of 'Normalizing Office Attendance'

Wall Street Orders All Employees Back to Office This Month

Mentoring and Collaboration Difficult Remotely

Workers Consider Quitting to Keep Remote Work

Swiss UBS Uses Remote Work as Incentive

Facebook and Twitter Allow Remote Work Permanently

Criticism That Benefits Are Only for White-Collar Workers

[Asia Economy Reporters Kwon Jaehee and Cho Hyun-ui] "If you can go to restaurants, why can't you come to the office?" VS "Five-day office work is an outdated mindset"

As COVID-19 vaccinations expand and daily life rapidly returns to normal in the United States, labor and management are clashing over work styles in many places. Companies want to end remote work and hasten office returns since everything is normalized, but employees who have become accustomed to remote work over the past year have different views. Conflicts and noise are occurring everywhere, and each side offers different solutions.

Companies that quickly adopted remote work when the COVID-19 pandemic hit now face a major challenge of how to 'normalize' work after the pandemic.

▲Jamie Dimon, CEO of JPMorgan Chase [Image source=Reuters News]

◆"If You Want a New York Salary, Work in New York"=Wall Street was the first to push for office normalization. As vaccinations became widespread, Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan Chase, and others ordered all employees back to the office starting in July.

Morgan Stanley CEO James Gorman warned, "If you can go to restaurants, you can come to the office," adding, "If you want to be paid New York prices, work in New York."

Wall Street insists on office returns because mentoring, training, and collaboration naturally occur in the office but do not happen during remote work.

Goldman Sachs CEO David Solomon said, "We do not want new hires to start remotely," expressing concern that they cannot receive direct mentoring.

Some companies are even expanding office space. Google and Apple are examples. Google announced it will start office work for all employees from September. It also received state approval to build a mega campus in San Jose, planning to construct 680,000 square meters of office space and about 4,000 housing units over the next decade.

Apple, another Silicon Valley giant, purchased six additional buildings in Sunnyvale last May. This office space can accommodate 2,800 to 3,500 employees. Apple's deal is considered the largest real estate lease transaction in Silicon Valley since the COVID-19 pandemic began, signaling that traditional office work will continue.

▲Google, a leading company in Silicon Valley, will start office work from September. [Image source=AP News]

◆Employees Say They Will Quit If Remote Work Ends=However, even after the end of COVID-19, workers are reluctant to give up remote work. In the U.S., the remote work rate remains high, and some even refuse to come to the office.

A joint research team including Stanford professor Nicholas Bloom and Chicago Booth professor Steve Davis reported that the share of working hours spent remotely in the U.S. surged from 5.3% before COVID-19 to 60% in May last year and currently remains above 40%. When vaccinations began at the end of last year, the rate was about 50%, and it has stayed between 40% and 50% as nearly one in four people worldwide have received at least one vaccine dose.

Companies planned to reduce remote work to about 20% post-pandemic, but workers are holding onto the 'remote work is better than a raise' card and even considering quitting. A Bloomberg survey of 1,000 adults in May found that 39% would consider quitting if their employer did not offer remote work.

Some companies use remote work as an incentive. To attract top talent, they provide preferred work environments. Swiss UBS allows all employees except traders and branch workers who must be in the office to work remotely permanently or combine remote and office work. Citigroup also allows two days of remote work per week.

Bloomberg interpreted UBS's policy as a contrast to U.S. banks reluctant to offer remote work, viewing it as a strategy to secure top talent.

The world's largest social media company, Facebook, decided to allow remote work permanently.

▲Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Facebook [Image source=Reuters Yonhap News]

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said, "Over the past year, we have learned that good work can be done anywhere," adding, "Especially as remote video and virtual reality continue to evolve, large-scale remote work is possible."

Twitter and Square, led by Jack Dorsey, also allow permanent remote work. Consumer goods group Unilever, which owns brands like Dove and Ben & Jerry's ice cream, joined this trend.

Unilever CEO Alan Jope said, "Five-day office work is a very outdated method," and pledged, "We will never return to the past," establishing remote work as a new work style.

▲A view of Manhattan, New York, where major business districts are concentrated [Image source=Reuters Yonhap News]

◆"Increased Productivity" VS "Exclusive to White-Collar Workers"=Why do workers prefer remote work so much? A FlexJobs survey of 2,100 people in April found that 84% cited no commuting as the biggest advantage of remote work. Cost savings ranked second at 75%. FlexJobs reported that over one-third of respondents saved at least $5,000 annually after starting remote work. In contrast, answers related to work-life balance, such as "not being separated from family or pets" and "being able to care for children," were only 26% and 15%, respectively. This overturns previous concerns that working from home would distract from family and household responsibilities.

The new work style eliminating commuting has also been linked to increased productivity. According to a survey by U.S. consulting firm Global Workplace Analytics of 2,025 workers, remote workers worked an average of 26 extra hours per month compared to office workers. This is expected to boost U.S. economic productivity by about 5%. The joint research team including Professor Bloom stated in their report, "New technologies rapidly adopted after COVID-19 will provide economic benefits," and "Optimized work arrangements from remote work will increase productivity even after the pandemic ends."

▲A view of Manhattan, New York, where major business districts are concentrated [Image source=Reuters Yonhap News]

However, some criticize that remote work benefits only highly educated, high-income workers. In the U.S., over 60% of four-year college graduates and the top 25% income earners work remotely, while only 1.2% of those with less than a high school diploma and 28.8% of the bottom 25% income earners do so. So-called 'white-collar' knowledge workers can easily work online, whereas supermarket clerks, construction workers, and healthcare workers who interact with customers cannot.

BBC reported, "While 88% of finance and business workers can work remotely, only 3% of transportation workers and 1% of agriculture and fishing workers can do so."

Differences in job nature aside, the ability to set up a remote work environment also causes inequality. According to the U.S. Pew Research Center, 92% of people earning over $100,000 annually have a desktop or laptop computer at home, compared to 59% of those earning less than $30,000. Internet access at home was 93% for the higher earners and 57% for the lower earners.

BBC expressed concern that "differences in access to technology are leading to economic inequality."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.