“The road ahead is arduous and will require intense work to succeed,” he wrote in a company-wide email sent to employees on Thursday morning and seen by the Financial Times. “We are . . . changing Twitter’s policy so that remote work is no longer allowed unless you have a specific exemption.” Employees must be in the office for at least 40 hours per week, except for those who are “physically unable to travel” or have “a critical personal obligation,” according to the email. Musk added that he would review and approve any exceptions to the policy himself, instructing managers to compile lists of any staff who wish to continue working remotely. Twitter’s new policy matches Musk’s requirements at another company he runs, Tesla, where he insisted in June that staff must report to work at least 40 hours a week at the office or find a new job. The email to Twitter employees, first reported by Bloomberg, was the first they received directly from Musk after the $44 billion acquisition of the social media platform. Musk used his personal Twitter account to publicly tease new initiatives and products for the company. The move was met with dismay by some staff who were further removed from the office during the pandemic and now face long commutes, two former Twitter employees said. Former CEO Parag Agrawal had said in March this year, before Musk offered to buy the company, that staff could work from home “full time forever”. 3) Wherever you feel most productive and creative is where you will work and that includes WFH full time forever. 4) Distributed work will be challenging. We will need to be proactive, deliberate, learn and adapt. 5) We thank the team that supports us every day. — Parag Agrawal (@paraga) March 3, 2022 A Twitter employee said: “It’s not a huge surprise given how it does things at other companies. [The] The manner of communications and the lack of notice did not help to bring people with him.” Bruce Daisley, Twitter’s former vice president for Europe, said: “It’s an easy management mistake to assume that employees who work from home are less productive or collaborative than those in the office. . .[but]Remote workers work more, not less. In general, when we feel we can maintain a better work-life balance, we are happier in our jobs. Musk may find that his team ends up more frustrated by this additional jab at them.” Musk began cutting the company’s 7,500-strong workforce last week “in an effort to get Twitter on a healthy path,” as he warned the platform had experienced a “massive drop in revenue” since the completion of his acquisition. Musk also asked staff to work around the clock on new products, including charging a subscription for users to access a blue tick on their profile, as well as features like the edit button. Twitter’s new office rules put it at odds with its social media rivals, who all have flexible working. At TikTok, staff have been asked to return to the office for at least two days a week since September this year, while Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram, has encouraged remote working, with many top executives away from the company’s headquarters.
