ALBAWABA – Management has ordered staff and employees back to the office at Zoom, the video communications company whose name became associated with remote work during the pandemic, the BBC reported Tuesday.
The company said it believed a "structured hybrid approach" was most effective and people living within 80km of an office should work in person at least twice a week.
This decision, by Zoom, is the latest push by a major firm to row back flexible working policies.
Amazon and Disney are also among the companies that have reduced remote work days.
Meanwhile, surveys suggest that workers are still holding onto the ability to work from home to some degree, according to the BBC.
About 12 percent of workers in the United States (US), where Zoom is headquartered, were fully remote in July, according to a survey by researchers at Stanford University and others. Another 29 percent had been working with hybrid policies, as reported in the survey, which has been conducted on a monthly basis since the pandemic.
The Office for National Statistics in the United Kingdom (UK) reported similar results earlier this year, as per the BBC.
Earlier research by the Stanford team found that remote work is more common in English-speaking countries, and far less common in Asia and Europe.
Before the COVID-19 pandemic hit, the share of days worked from home in the US was only about 5 percent. Globally, workers consistently desired more flexible working arrangements than employers see as optimal.
Zoom at one point said staff would be able to work remotely indefinitely, but has since reinstituted work from the office days.
The tech firm said the new policy would be rolled out in August and September, on a staggered timeline that varied by country, the BBC reported.
Many of the company’s employees will have to go back to the office at Zoom by the end of the year.
It also said it would continue to "hire the best talent, regardless of location". At the end of January, the company employed about 8,400 people, more than half of whom were based in the US.
Zoom said that the new policy, first reported by Business Insider, would put the company in a "better position to use our own technologies, continue to innovate, and support our global customers".
"We'll continue to leverage the entire Zoom platform to keep our employees and dispersed teams connected and working efficiently," Zoom said.
In September 2022, only about 1 percent of the company's workers had "regular office presences".
Whereas 75 percent lived and worked remotely and the remainder had hybrid arrangements, the Wall Street Journal reported at the time.
Since then, however, Zoom has been under mounting pressure as rivals, such as Microsoft, upgrade their video communication services.
Growth has significantly declined since the pandemic and the company was forced to cut 15 percent of its staff and introduce major pay cuts to top executives, according to the BBC.
Zoom shares are worth about $68 apiece today, down from more than $500 in October 2020.
