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Elon Musk Tesla email: Remote work is no longer acceptable
- fbrncci 4y agoPerhaps just a disguised layoff? A percentage of workers will not come back, and in case layoffs have to happen; that percentage is already out of the picture.
- jallen_dot_dev 4y agoYeah I think companies will push for full return to office (while making exceptions for top performers who push back) as a way to reduce headcount without having to layoff. Cheaper that way.
- kenjackson 4y agoExceptions for top performers will make it hard to keep the tier just below them.
- HWR_14 4y agoGiven that there is no legally required severance, couldn't companies just fire large groups of people. I thought paying people during a layoff was just a morale booster for those who remain anyway, so a thinly disguised layoff benefits no one.
- lotsofpulp 4y agoTerminating emplpyees without cause makes the employee eligible for unemployment benefits. The more employees that receive unemployment benefits, the higher the unemployment insurance premiums will be (billed to the company by the state government).
- mantas 4y agoHuh? So there's a clear incentive for the company to force employee separation in other ways? At least in my country (and I guess in most of europe?) each worker pays % of salary to social benefits fund that pays unemployment benefit. There's severance pay on employer for no-fault separation though. Which is now lowered specifically to avoid situations when employers push people to „voluntarily“ leave.
- Volundr 4y ago> Huh? So there's a clear incentive for the company to force employee separation in other ways? Yep. You've summed up the situation 100% accurately.
- HWR_14 4y ago> there's a clear incentive for the company to force employee separation in other ways? Yes, however the law recognizes that creating a hostile environment to force people to quit is essentially firing them. Which means in that case you can quit, then move on to filing paperwork claiming it was due to the hostile environment, go before a government body, etc.
- paxys 4y agoWhen you try to reduce employee count by making work conditions worse, the employees who will leave are those who can easily find opportunities elsewhere (so your top performers). With layoffs you want to be targeting the opposite end of the workforce – people who aren't pulling their weight and will never voluntarily quit.
- wankerrific 4y ago100% this is a disguised layoff - “encouraged attrition” if you will. Cheaper than a layoff
- dt3ft 4y agoDoes anyone here honestly cares what Elon says? Just wondering.
- iancmceachern 4y agoI dont, he's clearly been out of balance and getting worse for quite some time.
- oxplot 4y agoI’ve replied to your comment elsewhere and I get the impression that you are very disconnected with what Elon is like and is doing. Your comments echos mainstream media headlines which are misinformed and/or malicious wholesale. I really suggest you watch interviews with him, especially the technical ones (like with Tim Dodd at Starbase) where he is in deep in engineering and problem solving, on the ground at the site, not from some ivory tower, drinking whiskey.
- iostream24 4y agoIf he’s so clever he can probably figure out a way to process feedback that he’s being a deliberate dick with his statement on “pretend to work” Nothing about his public presence suggest nuance and a capacity for intelligence. Is he secretly a genius? Maybe so, but his comments about voting Republican due to twitter mob reactionism, when he is deliberately trying to buy what is obviously a political trumpet to cudgel people with suggests that he has no game theory at all… I suspect that he was lucky and interprets his luck as genius and favor from God
- iancmceachern 4y agoIts not that I don't see or know the same information you are using to base your decision on. I've seen the interviews. It's that I've drawn a different conclusion than you from that information. The fact that he works as many hours as he claims isn't a good thing. It isn't a badge of honor. It's not good that he has had so many romantic partners, it isn't good that he has so many kids that he clearly isn't raising, it isn't good that he is publicly so out of balance and is clearly constantly feeding his own ego with no boundaries. It isn't good that he now is facing sexual misconduct allegations. None of these things are good. None of those things are respectable. None of those things are OK for a role model to be modeling. We need to stop idolozong people for simply being rich and famous and good engineers and we need to start idolizing people for being good humans. Elon isn't a good human. Everything he or his fan base is told so, he and they (you) hide behind all the "good" he's doing do as to draw the attention away from him not being a good human.
- raverbashing 4y agoWhat a great foot-gun So, you did your job well WFH for the past 2 years but now you're being mandated to be "40h at the office minimum"? Cool, cool Sounds like there will be plenty of CVs around
- jleyank 4y agoWay easier and way cheaper than a layoff. No messy separation payments, etc. political theatre as well.
- willcipriano 4y agoI talked to a lot of companies when interviewing a few months back. All of the always in office or 3 days a week in office firms were not paying a premium over remote roles. This made me ask myself, if I provide so much more value in the office why can't they share some of it with me? Unless Tesla has been on top of inflation adjustments over the past two years, I'd be looking for another job just on principle.
- id 4y agoWhy would they share value with you if the goal is to maximize profit?
- nessbot 4y agoIn order to hire them to generate the value for said profit.
- fennecfoxen 4y agoBecause in this job market, I have power, and I can use it elsewhere.
- willcipriano 4y agoWhy would I spend two hours + a day in a car if my goal is to maximize profit per hour worked?
- randomsearch 4y ago
- fnordpiglet 4y agoYet another reason to not work at a Musk company.
- kQq9oHeAz6wLLS 4y agoMore accurately, you should avoid being an exec at one of his companies. Sounds like you wouldn't be a good fit.
- fnordpiglet 4y agoRather it’s written to professional staff, which includes his non trivial software groups. I see nothing indicating it’s written to senior management, in fact his only scoping reference is about a mid level HR type role and it was fairly obviously written to everyone other than the factory workers who obviously can’t work from home. > Sounds like you wouldn’t be a good fit. Yes, I assumed my post implied I wouldn’t want to work at one of his companies. Did you read it differently?
- encryptluks2 4y agoI think they meant it as an insult. I wouldn't want to work for a pedo projector either.
- flyandscan88 4y agoAnd he should leave the US if he thinks taxes are too high
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- xupybd 4y agoI like it. He wants his company to work a certain way. His communication is clear and as he states they can work at other companies if they want. Personally I prefer meeting and collaborating in person. I find the bandwidth is much higher. For some focus work it doesn't matter but there is always an element that requires communication. You don't change the world without ruffling a few feathers.
- techdragon 4y agoAfter reading it twice… The charitable interpretation is this is addressed and intended to apply to the executive staff only. Which isn’t unreasonable given their higher responsibilities and likely higher monetary compensation. But I bet everyone just jumps to assuming he means everyone working for Tesla and makes a huge deal about this. Because hating on Elon gets clicks and thus ad revenue…
- twirlock 4y agoAnd also because he's explicitly made similar statements about non-executive staff, including purely hypothetical staff, e.g. the staff at twitter.
- lumost 4y agoAlso worth remembering that Tesla’s original eng culture was about collocating design and production. Remote makes their culture look a lot more like a standard auto company.
- jallen_dot_dev 4y agoHe mentions reviewing exceptions for "particularly exceptional contributors" it's intended to be communicated down.
- FireBeyond 4y agoHe means everyone. "If there are exceptional contributors" - one would hope that the entire executive team is exceptional in his eyes, or why are they executives? And he wouldn't need to specify "I will approve them directly" - executives outside of policy would already be approved by Musk. He's saying "I have to approve it, not you." This is a directive, not "hey you guys, and only you guys".
- danmur 4y agoI wonder if it's ambiguous to the exec team as well and they're all hurriedly trying to guess what it means
- bobobob420 4y agoThis dude went to some place in china where people live in poverty and have no life and got inspired smh
- sn0w_crash 4y ago
- CSMastermind 4y agoIt's been interesting seeing the success of the Tesla stock when all I hear about is bad working conditions at the company.
- paulpauper 4y agoWall Street does not care. It's also worth noting that plenty of other companies have reportedly bad working conditions, such as Chipotle and Disney, but get much less media coverage. Tesla is literally the biggest target.
- mikkergp 4y agoI've heard various iterations of this philosophy over the years: https://www.marketwatch.com/story/why-it-can-pay-to-buy-the-stocks-of-companies-you-love-to-hate-2020-01-31 https://www.marketwatch.com/story/why-it-can-pay-to-buy-the-...
- SyzygistSix 4y agoWhat we hear and how informed we are about the conditions are not necessarily the same thing. And I would add that anything that hurts Tesla and SpaceX is a desperately needed opportunity for others in those industries to claw back market share. There is a lot of genuine criticism of Musk but gunning for him is also a good strategy from would-be rivals that are unable to compete as well regarding production and desirability. At this point slowing down Tesla and SpaceX is one of the only strategies left to companies that have fought the current changes to those industries for decades.
- stefan_ 4y agoDid you also happen to hear of the "success in crypto coins" where no on even pretends to be working on anything?
- mmastrac 4y agoThere's likely a tenth-ening still left in Tesla stock, don't worry. There's a lot of hype holding that valuation. I wouldn't be brave enough to try and short it, however.
- cma 4y agoIf you are immunocompromised, make sure you are an "exceptional contributer" to get a personal approval.
- jmeister 4y agoHN threads on remote work and no-code reveal the change from its “founder” focus ~10 years ago to “worker” today. Nobody I know with a “founder” mindset even remotely entertains the possibility that remote-work can be as efficient as in-person, or instinctively reacts to no-code developments as an attack on their self-worth(as programmers).
- randmeerkat 4y agoI’m sure Mitchell Hashimoto would disagree with you.
- synu 4y agoOr anyone at GitLab
- Centigonal 4y agoOr anyone at Elastic
- ajmurmann 4y agoAlso Matt Mullenweg
- synu 4y agoAnd DHH
- ren_engineer 4y agothere's now multiple unicorns who have proven purely remote companies can work just fine. I'd say it's the opposite, people stuck in the past will cling to office work while actively hurting their business. Meanwhile actual innovators will take advantage by poaching quality talent from these companies Google and Tesla can force office work by paying ridiculous amounts of money, good luck with your shitty startup getting quality people to join while not offering remote. Engineers on HN for years have talked about hating open offices, remote work is a gift if you actually value productivity
- justahuman74 4y agoHow is TC at Tesla, it it high enough to make these sort of statements digestable?
- datalopers 4y agoNothing about Musk has ever been digestible, he's just removed the thin layer of veneer that wowed so much of SF/SV for the past couple decades.
- adastra22 4y agoTC... TechCrunch?
- aix1 4y agoTotal Compensation (salary + bonus + equity or whatever the Tesla equivalent is).
- denysvitali 4y agoTotal Compensation
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- moconnor 4y agoTotal Compensation - salary plus bonus plus options / stock Edit: lol
- deleted 4y ago
- forgingahead 4y ago*For executive staff - headline should be updated. This is normal and understandable - if you work in a position of leadership in any company where a large part of the workforce need to be onsite (eg: a factory or another manufacturing type environment), then it's a huge morale thing if your bosses are simply never around. If you've never worked in this type of company, either as a line-worker or in management, you won't understand this, as your frame of reference is our wonderfully comfortable tech-only remote-always orgs. This simply isn't possible for most other businesses where being onsite with your human reports is highly important since they themselves cannot work remote.
- chii 4y agoit depends - if your direct reports must be on site to work, it does make them feel salty that their boss isn't there with them. But you could make it work, if the relationship is one of mutual respect and trust. If the boss is there to micromanage or to enforce work quotas, then it won't work.
- nixgeek 4y agoNo, it’s from Elon to his ExecStaff distribution list informing them of a policy change. They’re to execute and he will personally review exceptions. This means expectations for Tesla are now you work from an office or Elon must personally approve the exception.
- SyzygistSix 4y agoAnd how do we know this? I'm thinking we don't really know either way yet.
- fzzzy 4y agoYeah, you're right, not having your boss around is a huge boost to morale.
- pyuser583 4y agoI’m probably in the minority, but I’m not thrilled with perpetual remote work. I wouldn’t be where I am if remote work was the norm, and I worry about my ability to advance.
- ARandomerDude 4y agoI disagree but have no idea why you're getting downvoted. You stated your point clearly and without malice. That said, I think the ability to advance is highly dependent on (1) what type of work you're in, and (2) the culture of the company. If the type of work you're in is genuinely remote-compatible, the prevalence of remote work will actually help solve the problem you're concerned about. I know many who work full-time remote positions in big corps and have not had trouble advancing.
- Gigachad 4y agoThe topic has become highly political because other people going to the office or speaking positively about offices threatens remote work for the rest. Same thing that happened with masks, no one was ok with someone else choosing differently because the bigger group would force their way over the smaller group.
- oaiey 4y agoIn some way that process is called Democracy :) but also mob rule :)
- imgabe 4y agoMakes sense that if you are an executive at a car factory, you should show up at the car factory and not just be some faceless void that sends orders from email. Yet, people are in here acting like this is a violation of the Geneva convention or something.
- crossroadsguy 4y agoMaybe there’s some similarity? :) Because Geneva Convention also applies to weaker/smaller or defeated countries. For the rest it’s something on the paper; like human rights.
- forum_ghost 4y agoIndeed. Why shouldn't there be a binding UN convention that enforces work from home where possible to save us from climate change?
- temp8964 4y agoLoL. Whose gets to decide "possible"?
- ARandomerDude 4y agoWell for starters, the moment (nearly) all other nations dictate the laws of your country, you no longer have a country – and certainly not a democratic one. Your elections become irrelevant because people in distant lands (including those with tyrannical governments) can simply overrule the will of your people. Codifying the long-term destruction of your own nation into law for the sake of a single issue is a bad idea.
- bruce511 4y agoLet me answer this with an analogy. And I'm really not wanting to explore the analogy directly (so let's not get off topic) but it may help you to understand how this ends. Why shouldn't there be a binding UN resolution that enforces public transport, and bans the production and use of cars to save us from climate change? Or here's another even more contraversial one (again, let's not get distracted) why don't we have a UN resolution banning the personal ownership of firearms? I'm hoping you can see from these why UN binding resolutions would be pointless - they would simply result in the ultimate dissolution of the UN. (uxit?)
- ng55QPSK 4y agoI saw a discussion recently (with some C-level and at the WEF) and one said: The company "needs to earn the commute" - and explained that if the office is just another place where the desk stands in a room it's not worth it for the employees to spend time to get there.
- ragebol 4y agoI like this. I'm currently on my 1% of not working remote, first and last few days of being in the office since last year July. I'm just as productive or maybe less than I was at home. Only reason to be here is to have a face to face chat, a beer and BBQ with colleagues. Oh, and see our hardware in person, but productivity wise, the benefit is negligible if at all.
- SSLy 4y agoI visit the office once a month to meet the folks, I don't even pretend to do any work on such days maybe except replying to emails.
- dekhn 4y agoI think of it slightly differently- I go to the office primarily to be social, but will at times to pair programming or other technical work with coworkers in the same room. However, I never try to do anything complex (https://dev.to/_bigblind/are-interruptions-really-worse-for-programmers-than-for-other-knowledge-workers-2ij9 https://dev.to/_bigblind/are-interruptions-really-worse-for-...) in person/in the office, just minor changes that work together if two people are in a room. Write a few lines, see that things still pass, and send for review, which is then done carefully, without distractions, out of office.
- tombert 4y agoThat was definitely my experience with working at a satellite office at a FAANG company. I would take the train an hour each way every day, just to dial into a remote meeting in California. It didn't bother me at first, but eventually it really bothered me once COVID hit and we were allowed to work from home. I'm not opposed to being on the train for two hours a day if I feel like there's value in me actually being there (e.g. if I were a lecturer or something), but my job is to sit on my ass and write code, and I can do that at home, in my office, with music playing as loud as I want, being able to cook my own lunch for cheaper, and my "commute" taking about 20 seconds a day.
- moneywoes 4y agoSeems fair enough for the execs
- fnordpiglet 4y agoI see so many folks reading that it is to the executives only. But it’s fairly clearly written to the professional staff, which includes functions like software engineering, AI, design, and a bunch of the workforce that likely wants to work from home a lot and reasonably can successfully. I’m a little confused where the “execs” interpretation comes from. Do you think the person who handles HR for the Fremont plant is an executive? They’re a mid level person at best, but they’re a professional worker rather than a line factory worker.
- tschwimmer 4y agoThe tweet author (in my opinion inaccurately) states that this is for executives only. I agree, this is clearly targeted towards the entire workforce.
- foysauce 4y agoFwiw, The "To" field in the email is "ExecStaff" so it's not completely inferred.
- twayt 4y agoContributor generally means someone who is not part of the exec team
- wly_cdgr 4y agoIt may not be a popular decision, but it's clearly his prerogative
- ng55QPSK 4y agoIn Europe we have a rather healthy conversation on 4-day work weeks and 40h maximum. Why is the US tech industry so rooted in Presence culture?
- TheGigaChad 4y ago
- iancmceachern 4y agoBecause the leaders of many companies have somehow tied their personal ego to it.
- icelancer 4y agoNot sure. Since we're asking hypothetical questions about work tied to productivity, why are there almost no EU companies on the top 30 annual revenue list in the technology sector?
- oaiey 4y agoIt is not the working hours (since this does not scale) but about putting work before anything else (little to no vacation, working in the middle of the night, flying to Asia with a day notice, making brutal decisions, ...)
- assttoasstmgr 4y agoI assume they were on vacation when the surveys were mailed out
- thealig 4y agobeing on the top 30 annual revenue list does not necessarily tell you anything about productivity or presence culture of the companies in question. it could also entail those companies having more customers and better marketing budget, which can result in good network effect(along with good enough product of course)
- ng55QPSK 4y agoFirst: Do you really rate success by looking at revenue only? Second: The Europe parts of e.g. Apple play a big role in developing the future of the US company, but revenue seems to be accounting to US only ...
- iancmceachern 4y agoMaybe he should do some math and determine how much time he spends on Tesla vs. His other projects. I would have a hard time being told to work more and harder by a leader that spends time on flamethrowers and cave rescue submarines. In the words of the Google leadership, be thoughtful with how you use your employees time.
- iancmceachern 4y agoThose downvoting please note here why it's OK to ask people to work above 40 hours while also squandering good peoples time doing joke products. Rather than turn the screws on your employees publicly why not simple cut out the non-essential projects and publicly note so? The first approach makes it look like your employees are slacking and need to pick up the slack, the second takes responsibility on himself.
- jonas21 4y agoDo you consider all marketing to be a waste of time? Because that's what the flamethrowers are. And they're fantastic.
- iancmceachern 4y agoThey aren't marketing. They don't sell cars. It's easy to just call everything marketing, but show me hard data on how fossil fueled flamethrowers sell more electric cars and I'll bow out immediately.
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- kube-system 4y agoAcademically, it would fall under “guerrilla marketing”. It is a high risk, high reward technique. If it pays off, you can get quite a lot of attention for very little money.
- 4y ago
- havkom 4y agoWhat a nightmare to be an executive at Tesla. Elon micromanaging your staff.
- rpmisms 4y agoI understand. I'd rather not be required to go into an office again, ever, but Tesla has a culture that remote could hurt. Don't appreciate the "pretend to work" comment. I work harder and better from home.
- empraptor 4y agoTesla has a culture of working 21/7 and sleeping at the factory. this is just typical asshatery from a ceo who gets paid millions while jerking off at the factory 24/7 and expects his employees to put in the same hours. the sooner Tesla goes bankrupt the better.
- system16 4y ago> hey elon a lot of people are talking about this leaked email, any additional comment to people who think coming into work is an antiquated concept? > They should pretend to work somewhere else https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1531867103854317568 https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1531867103854317568
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- TheGigaChad 4y ago
- refurb 4y agoIf the economy goes into the crapper expect more of this. It’s easy for companies to bend to every ask by employees when the money is rolling in - protest against our customers, bring your pets in, work remote 100% on your terms. But when revenue is falling and it’s crunch time all that goes out the window.
- avrionov 4y agoNot having an office makes the company much more flexible. - They can hire anywhere. - Adding / removing employees is much cheaper - Most business are already prepared for their employees to work from everywhere.
- twayt 4y agoDisagree with Musk on this one. His follow up tweet "They should pretend to work somewhere else" implies that everyone who works remotely is merely pretending to work. To make a blanket statement like this shows a lack of judgement. He further states that people who are particularly exceptional should be allowed to work remotely. This means that a contributor who is substantially more productive at home than in office should be forced to sacrifice their gain in productivity if they don't meet the bar for "exceptional". Furthermore, while the total number of "hours worked" might be more at the office, everyone knows that the number of fake hours worked is also higher. Finally, the nail in the coffin to his argument is the following: If someone can successfully pretend to work from home without any performance repercussions, there is clearly a lack of proper management in the company since performance is not measured by any proper metric of success but rather by their physical presence or hours worked. If an individual's productivity is found to be lacking due to their preference to work remotely, this should be communicated by the management chain and appropriate incentives/disincentives have to be put in place to guide the individual to perform at the level desired. For roles that require you to be present at the location e.g. human resources or hardware roles, you can make those positions non-remote. Certain kinds of work like software development or design can absolutely be done remotely if the management is competent. Lastly you can make an argument for innovation arising from the propagation of ideas and that this is more likely to happen if people are colocated. I think this is probably true but I also suspect that you can design a remote environment that allows this to happen even more effectively than in person. One idea that I think can work is to hold a brainstorming session with round-robin 1:1 discussions. You can form a fully connected graph of everyone's pairwise experience bouncing off each other which is more effective than the small k to many interaction that happens in meetings where an overconfident vocal minority comes up with most of the ideas.
- iqkznnft 4y ago> To make a blanket statement like this shows a lack of judgement. In other words, nothing new. If there's one thing I associate with Elon Musk it's blanket statements that show ignorance/stupidity/lack of judgement/bad character.
- 4y ago
- bravetraveler 4y agoOperations is now to adopt a nomadic lifestyle, traveling between datacenters Go ahead and air gap everything
- Hypocritelefty 4y ago
- PebblesHD 4y agoIn a way, I’m glad they as a company look like they’ll be upfront about the conditions if you apply for a role. I left the last company I worked for due to a number of factors, most obviously though was an office move out of the city and into the suburbs. In many cases this would be great, but with the way Sydney is configured with transit, if you’re on the ‘other’ side of the city, it would mean a journey all the way through and back out to get there, doubling the transit time, which coupled with a forced return to office contrary to the ‘flexible’ employment described in the contract was just a non-starter. So, while I understand why people would rather WFH became permanent, at least it seems Tesla will be upfront about that not being how they work.
- anarticle 4y agoTime for wages to match inflation. Employers can buy return to office, with the right terms. My guess is it will turn into a silent layoff.
- stevenalowe 4y ago
- Gigachad 4y ago
- throw457 4y ago
- stevenalowe 4y agoThe /s is just in case the irony was lost on you.
- kkfx 4y agoThere is no issue: one side demand something, maybe the other side agree or not. If the company side loose talents than they have to change, that's the "market". Oh, BTW such "market" depend on unity on all sides, one, the corporate, is united, the other so far is not, but IF it realize the power of being united...
- SilverBirch 4y agoI think the long term trend with this is that the market is going to be segmented. You're going to have companies that allow remote work and operate that model going forwards. They'll establish some minimum requirements for on-sites, working hours, performance management etc. They'll have access to a wider pool of talent, a lower average cost of employee, but it'll be more difficult to establish those systems. Then you'll have the permanent work from office companies. They'll have minimum hours in the office, a limited talent pool, higher cost of employee, higher costs of office space too. Over time you're probably going to see the latter group outcompeted by the former group, simply because the latter group can provide far more benefits in terms of quality of life, more competitive effective comp (they can pay you less, but your cost of living can be far lower), and of course the fact that the latter group is just the "back to normal" group where presenteeism has replaced productivity in a lot of the real metrics for success. Of course there's the real third category - the companies who loudly say they're work from the office, but whose entire management chain understands that's untenable after spending 2 years hiring in people telling them they can work remote and so the policy will be "work from the office" but the real policy will be "don't let Elon Musk catch you working from home".
- timwaagh 4y agoMusk isn't known for being particularly nice to employees.
- neilwilson 4y agoMarket competition will sort this out. Those who can make remote work as effectively as presence gain a competitive advantage since the dead loss cost of commuting is eliminated, as is the dead loss cost of agglomeration - which is always borne by the employee. Living in a big city is expensive. Hopefully with the ever decreasing supply of talent and workers, those operations that know how to manage people will flourish and those that don't will die.
- corney91 4y agoOf course he wants people in the office, not just at Tesla but all companies. He's not exactly going to be happy about more remote-friendly companies while owning a car company. Or more pithily: "Man who owns car company encourages more commuting"
- Ekaros 4y agoAlso tunnel boring company which makes rather poorly utilized tunnels so people can have semi-public transit without all of those horrible other people...
- throw457 4y agoI don't understand Musk he always wants to be seen as strong and confident and everything he does shows that he is just insecure.
- ldiracdelta 4y agoSounds like a brilliant marketer.
- readerbaza 4y agoThe main benefit of a self driving car will be sleepy commute. Obviously he wants people to commute. No need for a fancy tesla when you can be sleepy at home
- GiorgioG 4y agoReducing headcount without layoffs. That’s all this is.
- gameswithgo 4y agoSeems more like the natural progression of Elon turning into a boomer stereotype.
- jmull 4y agoThe problem is, you don't get to pick the people who leave. Probably for most companies, losing 10% of the workforce could either have little impact on productivity (or even a positive impact) or be devastating. It entirely depends on which 10%.
- ryanbrunner 4y agoReally poor way to do it, since the people with the lowest cost to leaving are the ones that Tesla probably wants to stick around the most.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- choxi 4y agoIt looks like this email is to the executive staff, not the entire company.
- aero-glide2 4y ago'Additionally, we were provided with a second email Elon sent, this time to all employees, reiterating the “in the office” expectation.' https://reddit.com/r/teslamotors/comments/v2bt39/elon_everyone_at_tesla_is_required_to_spend_a/iarhbow?context=3 https://reddit.com/r/teslamotors/comments/v2bt39/elon_everyo...
- lizknope 4y agoThe part where he says "There are of course companies that don't require this, but when was the last time they shipped a great new product? It's been a while." Is he serious? There are plenty of companies shipping great products with people working from home. My own company had 99% of the employees including most lab engineers working from home for the last 2 years. We posted record profits, our stock quadrupled, and won a lot of new customers.
- gryzzly 4y agoWhat a bad employer Musk seems to be.
- formerly_proven 4y agoThey expect more than 40 hour work weeks from factory workers?! The "minimum 40 hours in the office" - to me - would read like "sure you can do remote work, as long as you are in the office full-time", but if his expectation is people pulling 60+ hour work weeks it becomes "sure you can do remote work, as long as it's after you're done with the regular full-time office shift". Any of which is already terrible on its own.
- Lendal 4y agoTo be fair, a lot of US employers talk to their employees this way over email. In person they're slightly less abusive but still on that side of the line. Part of the reason for the massive amounts of quitting and very low productivity going on. If he's doing it to reduce headcount, the people who stay will be mindfully less productive than the people who leave. He's backsliding and in the near future he'll blame everyone else but himself.
- ehnto 4y ago40 hours is already more than most western nation's salaried full time work maximum, it's also more than the American average, and more than the worldwide average. Though I'm sure those averages are skewed heavily by the way employment has changed in the last decade, with the contractification of the work force, the gig economy and full-time work becoming less common. Is it typical to work more than that as a white collar worker at Tesla?
- PragmaticPulp 4y ago> 40 hours is already more than most nations salaried full time work maximum, Citation? 40 hours is a standard full-time work week in many locations. Are you trying to suggest that “most nations” have work limits lower than 40 hours per week? Because that’s not true at all.
- dboreham 4y ago37.5 in the UK last time I worked there.
- ehnto 4y agoSorry I've made an edit since your reply, I meant to write western nations, but in fairness I can't find any good collated citations, and it's not likely to be "most western nations" as I thought anyway. So I guess just consider my comment an anecdote. But anecdotally (ie based on googling around) it is around 38 hours in NZ, Australia, Denmark, Netherlands, Norway, Belgium, France, Sweden, Finland, Germany, Spain, Italy, Ireland and Luxembourg. It's usually reported as an average of hours worked by a full time employee, but in at least a few of these countries it's actually a government set maximum. It wasn't really the 40 hours I was taking issue with anyway, as that's pretty reasonable. But what does it mean to say that if you want to work remotely, you have to put in 40 hours at the office as well, shouldn't that be all you have to put in? It's just a loaded way to communicate.
- honkdaddy 4y agoConversely, if you only look at the hours worked for people who make $200k+, you'll probably find that 40/wk is on the lower end. I think it's fair to say that North American engineers (like myself) are handsomely well-paid for the amount of time we put in, compared to really any other market in the world.
- justinph 4y agoEvery time this guy tweets, I regret my purchase more and more. Can't he just keep it focused on the cars and the share price? Instead it always has to be some ego trip about how he is smarter and harder worker than everyone else. I hope this pushes folks at Tesla to unionize. The NLRB has ruled health and safety are subjects of mandatory bargaining. If your employer is making you return to an unsafe office during a global pandemic, this is in violation of that.
- gameswithgo 4y ago
- _ph_ 4y agoAdmittedly, that wasn't a tweet by Elon, but a leaked internal mail. But yes, it hints at less than optimal working conditions.
- refurb 4y agoI mean this was leaked? He didn’t post it. And isn’t running a business efficiently, including on site workers, “focused on the cars and the share price”?
- 30944836 4y ago>Every time this guy tweets, I regret my purchase more and more. You are certainly free to feel however you like about your own purchases, but I have to say, I don't understand it. Either you like the car or you don't. If you do -- great! Drive away. If you don't -- sell it. Don't see what the WFH policy of Tesla has to do with anything. Tesla employees are adults. They are not trapped by poverty wages. They are professionals. They can leave if they don't like it. I'm a die-hard WFH'er and also not a CEO. Musk should run his company how he feels best.
- grogenaut 4y agomany people buy teslas for the statment it makes about their views and priorities. so its not surprising those same people dislike when its not just about the environment amd now tangled up with musks world view of the day.
- krnlpnc 4y agoNo doubt he’ll follow that rule himself and not spend a huge portion of his time traveling and working from hotels.
- nemo44x 4y agoI think for a manufacturing company this is only fair. He specifically points out a problem - the Fremont factory HR manager who lives in another state. The factory workers have to come in every day. It’s probably demoralizing to them that the people with the cushier jobs don’t have to. It’s an act of solidarity.
- 7thaccount 4y agoThat's an excuse anyway. Factory workers have to come in, because that's where the machinery is. Most other jobs are fine as remote. I'd never work for Tesla locally as I'd probably have to make over $1M/year to just have my current (very spartan) standard of living.
- PragmaticPulp 4y ago> I'd never work for Tesla locally as I'd probably have to make over $1M/year to just have my current (very spartan) standard of living. There is no big city in the USA where anyone needs $1m/year to live a “very spartan” standard of living.
- Tepix 4y agoPerhaps his/her problem are alymonies?
- bombcar 4y agoOr the upkeep on the other six accounts. :)
- 7thaccount 4y agoLol that was just from not keeping a password on the old accounts and eventually losing them.
- 7thaccount 4y agoAn average house in Silicon Valley is like in the millions. If Tesla pays me $200k/year, it'll take a long time to pay off. Compare that where I live (nice house is $150k and I make over six figures). My buying power seems much higher where I'm at. Am I missing something obvious?
- _ph_ 4y agoThere are plenty of reasons, why it can be valuable for people coming to the company offices. But if it was not apparent before, the pandemic has shown: - how much time is wasted in commutes - how much productivity can suffer from too much interaction with your colleagues - how much benefit for the performance and for your well being the flexibility of working from home brings. - and of course, with a modern sizable company, the teams often enough are spread across different sites. If Tesla has a team in Austin and in Freemont working together, what do they care about home office? If there is a direct work related reason to be in the office or even just the office actually being a more productive environment, one doesn't have to ask employees to come to the office. But forcing them to do so doesn't sound logical, as Spock would phrase it.
- PragmaticPulp 4y agoI’m actually surprised they allowed remote work at all. I’ve had a few friends and coworkers work at, and subsequently leave, Tesla. It’s not a place you choose to work at if your goal is to have a relaxed job.
- tombert 4y agoI can't believe I used to respect Elon. It's not inherently bad to want people in the office (he's free to run his company how he'd like), but that email (and especially the one sent to more general workers) read like a post on /r/im14andthisisdeep with some guy who thinks he's superior to everyone else.
- aero-glide2 4y ago/u/henrysun1313 tried writing a corp-speak version of this email, I prefer the original! : Dear colleagues - as we get back to working from the office, it is important that all of us do our part to spend time together face to face to enable communication and group alignment. Remote work is not able to help Tesla advance production and innovation at the pace required to meet our goals and fully serve our shareholders. As such, myself and the leadership team are committing to at least 40 hours a week in person and need all employees to do the same. Appreciate everyone's compliance with this policy, where your manager cannot make an exception without my direct approval. Let's charge forward with the Tesla mission and drive results. Thanks Elon
- tombert 4y agoI disagree; at least the corp-speak version would have a minimal level of respect instead of coming off like a manchild unwilling to live in the 21st century.
- jasd 4y agoHaving been in many managerial discussions where we try to figure out how to sugarcoat the real message, I'd much rather prefer the Elon version. I do agree that some level of empathy in the email would be nice but still hate th corp version. Atleast this way, there is no ambiguity about the seriousness of his ask.
- fisherjeff 4y agoYeah I found the whole “Tesla would’ve gone bankrupt if not for me working on the factory floor“ thing to be pretty wild, even for him.
- honeybadger1 4y agoGood
- JCM9 4y ago1) Tesla needs to reduce costs. Getting people to voluntarily quit is a lot easier, cheaper, and less messy than layoffs or firing people. 2) We’re all talking about this topic here, which is exactly what Elon wanted. So he was quite successful here too. 3) This whole WFH or not debate is going to ultimately be settled by the markets on an industry by industry basis. If being in the office matters and one company does that while another offers WFH the latter will get its ass kicked in a competitive environment. If one trusts “the market” in the long run companies will migrate to what works best and those that don’t will be out competed and gradually perish, either because they struggle to operate or struggle to recruit the best talent.
- cagenut 4y agoIt is so past time for him to hand over the reins.
- desireco42 4y agoI can understand this. Factory workers need to be present obviously and to have a large part of company remote, it kind of is bad for morale. And morale is vital part of Tesla, they are on the mission. That said, I don't think I would be working from office anytime soon, preferably never.
- honeybadger1 4y agoIt's really the lack of nuance on this topic that bothers me on HN. Tesla needs collaboration, drive, human interaction to be able to get their innovation and vision moving and I don't care what any snowflake here says, remote work slows this down. I have been working remotely the past 2 years and I have basically had enough of it. I am moving back to Miami to go back into the office and my company is rewarding me financially for it WHILE it being completely my choice to do so.
- kenjackson 4y agoI think it’s great that you’re doing that. It being your choice is key. For many of us we’ve seen that we’re just as productive working remotely plus we have more free time. There is no personal upside to me working in an office.
- honeybadger1 4y agoThis is fair and balanced reply. I still think it comes back to nuance on the company, what task you are performing, team size.. etc.. It's removing the nuance that causes the 'group think' on this topic and any company being flagged as regressive just because of this workforce decision.
- desireco42 4y agoThat is really good for you, you will probably be able to be paid more because you can be in the office, I just heard from a friend who got unheard compensation because he was willing to go to the office.
- dekhn 4y ago
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- seydor 4y agoTo be fair, Remote Work is a direct competitor of Tesla
- Closi 4y agoEveryone in this thread seems to make the implicit assumption that allowing everyone to work from home is at least as productive as requiring everyone be in the office. My personal experience is the opposite. Note that it is not just about personal productivity, but also about aggregate/corporate productivity. There are a few points to this: * Does the company collaborate or innovate better or worse if employees are remote? * Is it just as easy for new employees to on-board remotely? Does it take longer for them to get up to speed/full productivity? * Is it simply easier to work through problems in a specific problem domain in person? If Tesla thought remote work was as productive, they clearly wouldn’t make this move. They won’t be doing it to just cull numbers, there are better ways to do that linked to performance.
- ryanbrunner 4y agoA company stating that they'd like people to work in the office, or from home, doesn't mean that they're correct about that, even in their particular context. Companies do all sorts of things that contradict established science in terms of increasing productivity. As an example, from the sounds of these e-mails Tesla has their factory workers working longer than 40 hours a week, which is well established to decrease overall productivity.
- Closi 4y ago> As an example, from the sounds of these e-mails Tesla has their factory workers working longer than 40 hours a week, which is well established to decrease overall productivity. Productivity is very context dependent - if your job is working on a production line often your productivity is fairly fixed - you have x seconds to do y task while the car moves by. If you do it faster, the next car isn’t coming down the line any faster. You aren’t allowed to do it slower. A 42 hour average week on a 4 on 4 off shift is a pretty standard working arrangement for a factory. Also factory workers are paid hourly, so often offering fewer hours for a blue collar job isn’t seen as a bonus as it is for a salaried position. What shift pattern and hours would you propose instead that provides 24/7 cover and will be attractive to frontline workers? (12 hour days with 4 on and 4 off is often seen as the dream in factories that don’t have it!)
- rusteh1 4y agoThe email is to exec staff, not the entire company? Perhaps a BCC, or maybe just wants the execs to set an example?
- Leader2light 4y ago
- Woodi 4y ago> "They should pretend to work somewhere else" Yep, remote working is perfect excuse ! :) I hear there is new Zoom function to simulate trousers or something :> As for harsh form of that sometimes boss needs to be harsh. There are limits and buffers to almost anything in that reality. And as for remote working security: it's very, very hard ! What tools you can use ? Zoom, MS Teams/Skype, Signal, vpn ? Nothing is even close or even far from working in company place. Team/company building and cooperation and gains from that ? Remote working could be allowed for some less important and well defined work. But IMO it should be less paid, because it's less important, etc. Of course almost everything vary. And there is no doubt that remote work allows to pretend better to do actual work. Don't agree ? Make some scientific study that will, somehow, contradict that common knowledge and sense. Remote work allows and makes more peoples to pretend more. Until you are an artists :) But also check story of that ex-importand man from Apple...
- ryandvm 4y agoI dunno, maybe it's just me, but I would have a hard time taking "pretend to work somewhere else" seriously from my boss if he was a Twitter meme lord who seems to spend most of his cycles flinging poo in the shittersphere.
- ipspam 4y agoThe guy is famous for spending 16 hour days on the line for weeks at a time to pull companies through crisises. This is a far cry from the normal "he's here, he's working, he's mean, he's demanding, I don't like him" that I usually hear when people complain
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- ReptileMan 4y agoi think I am with Elon here ... Tesla makes physical product so it's best if all the decision makers and not only the grunts are as close to the product as possible.
- Xorakios 4y agoperhaps reading the actual post might be informative. He said that if people with physical jobs have to be in person, then people with information jobs should be in person as well