If you are someone who is enjoying working from home, saving hours of commute time and are happy to be with family and still be fortunate enough to keep your job and earn your bread during a global pandemic, WeWork’s Chief Executive Officer, Sandeep Mathrani has some thoughts for you.
The New York-based commercial real estate, workspace sharing company’s CEO Sandeep Mathrani remarks during Wall Street Journal’s interview that “Those who are overly engaged with the company, want to go to the office” and “Those who are least engaged are very comfortable working from home.”
According to reports, he added that people are happier when they go to an office for work and is betting on people wanting to work outside of their homes once it is safe for everyone to do it.
Well, people on the internet, especially Twitter are not very thrilled by Sandeep Mathrani’s remarks and the criticism is open and wide. The biggest of corporations and companies believe that majority of its employees are happy and contented working from home during the global pandemic and it is a safe space for them to focus on work without worrying about their families. According to research and surveys, the work from home culture has turned out to be good for the employee’s mental health during this crisis and most of them have increased their productivity working from home.
How is this bad for either the company or the employee if it’s the best of both worlds? Well, WeWork’s CEO has some views and so does so many other people on Twitter.
Corporate Vice President at Microsoft, Ann Johnson writes on Twitter, “If the only way you can keep your employees engaged is by being in the office with them, you have a leadership issue — not an employee engagement issue.”
https://twitter.com/NotesFromDevin/status/1392535114786250757?s=20
https://twitter.com/smittyrooo/status/1392542089817296904?s=20
Nothing says enthusiasm like riding the M home at 3 a.m. on a Saturday after working by myself in a big empty newsroom for several hours.
— Phil Corso (@philcorso) May 12, 2021
Furthermore, people are calling WeWork CEO’s remarks ‘embarrassing and outdated’. Some of them wrote that it is funny how a company whose business model is dependent on people needed office space is throwing such remarks on the Wall Street Journal.
such a shame that the office space ‘disrupters’ have now been ‘disrupted’ themselves. and to think people bought into them being a ‘tech company’!
— leanne griffin mchugh (@leannemgriff) May 12, 2021
Extraordinary to see WeWork CEO stake out a position so directly at odds with his business model. https://t.co/9iXkojBy9E
— ian bremmer (@ianbremmer) May 12, 2021
As you can see, people from all around the world are criticising this mentality. Facebook and Google have publicly announced that the productivity of their employees has increased significantly working from home and they are happy with their job. Both of these tech giants have said that the work from home culture will continue even after the pandemic ends and here we are with WeWork’s remarks.
Complete nonsense. Some people don’t want to come back to work because they were not provided with disability accommodations.
Some people got more work done. Others might be introverts. Ugh @WeWork but I’m sadly not surprised. https://t.co/oQwkYW8ezS
— Tinu – Empress of Twerk, Thirst of My Line. 🟣 (@Tinu) May 12, 2021
You mean the spectacularly fraudulent failure, WeWork? The WeWork that has a direct vested interest in the demand for office space?
That WeWork?
— simon (@thedenature) May 12, 2021
Company that rents office space shames people for wanting to work from home. Film at 11.
(PS employee engagement is location-independent for many businesses)#WeWork https://t.co/ezWAHhrrNB
— Carol Roth (@caroljsroth) May 12, 2021
WeWork has lost $37 billion dollars in 3 years and had to fire its entire executive staff so I'm definitely taking career advice from these guys https://t.co/QJBl1khs6f
— Scott Jennings (@Lum_) May 12, 2021