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Based on the below, provide a brief conclusion: In November…
Based on the below, provide a brief conclusion:
In November 2022, Elon Musk, the new CEO of Twitter, sent an email to Twitter employees that eliminated the company’s remote work policy and ordered all employees back to the office, effective immediately (Ray, 2022). This was a drastic change from Twitter’s flexible work culture and left many employees who had worked exclusively from home, both near to and far from the Twitter offices, scrambling to rearrange their lives and schedules to comply with the directive.
Twitter was among the first companies to allow fully remote work in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, and as a tech company with the potential for permanent remote work options, had a generous work from home policy, and an efficiently running company. This leads to the question, should Twitter order its employees back to the office? This paper argues “No, Twitter employees should continue to telework”, and examines the issue through the lens of organizational behavior concepts and theory.
Empowerment
According to Dua et al. (2022), employees highly value autonomy over where and when they work; granting employees this autonomy structurally empowers them in several ways. Employees who spend most of their work time in a remote environment require a degree of task independence, which is inherent in telework (Saragih et al., 2021). Another example is setting quantifiable goals that can be accomplished outside of traditional work hours, allowing employees flexibility to attend to personal matters, such as childcare or personal appointments, without taking time off work. Structurally empowering employees through flexible remote work allows them to pave their own path, manage their own time to foster improved work-life balance, and to become decision makers in place of order takers, leading to psychological empowerment and resulting in higher confidence with greater job satisfaction. Twitter may encourage a more favorable workplace culture by accepting their employees’ unique requirements and motivation for work-life balance.
Increased human capital
Allowing employees to continue to work remotely will provide Twitter access to a larger pool of human capital, defined by Kinicki (2021, p. 582) as “…the productive potential of an individual’s knowledge, skills, and experience”. People with disabilities are a largely untapped population with a wealth of potential talent who often remove themselves from the labor pool because of the challenges of commuting to a worksite due to reliance on equipment that is not easily mobile; however, Schur et al. (2020) point out that workers with disabilities have similar levels of organizational commitment when employed. Tech companies such as Twitter are particularly well-suited for remote work; flexible work arrangements could attract valuable talent who might otherwise be excluded.
Another population pool of underrepresented talent is women with caregiver responsibilities for children and adults, who may find it difficult to provide care while working full-time outside of the home. Connley (2020) points out 75 percent of caregivers are female, and 31 percent of women who had a break in their careers after having children did so out of necessity because of lack of workplace flexibility. Flexibility through remote work affords women in caregiver roles the opportunity to continue careers uninterrupted while meeting the needs of their families. Something as simple as eliminating a daily commute allows caregivers to be present for their children before and after school, and simplifies complex morning and afternoon routines that require every member of the household to depart to and return from multiple destinations. Employers taking into consideration the need for flexibility by employees who moonlight as caregivers fosters a supportive environment that allows employees to bring their best selves to work, and boosts employee morale, motivation, and job satisfaction by improving work-life balance.
“Work-life balance involves the minimization of work-related stress and the establishment of a stable and sustainable way to work while maintaining health and general well-being” (Qualtrics, 2023). Flexible work options decrease employee fatigue and stress, in turn increasing employee focus and overall performance. A recent study cited by Robinson (2022) showed working remotely increased employee happiness by 20 percent, and was based on two questions: If you look at your work, how would you rate your happiness on a scale from 1 to 10? How much of your work is currently done remotely or from home?
Person-environment fit and person-organization fit
In addition to work-life balance, how well an employee fits a company is also a driver of employee satisfaction. Kinicki (2021) described two ways in which employees “fit in”. The first is person-environment fit, which is the compatibility between an employee and a work environment. Even when a company like Twitter designs an office space with the comfort and individuality of employees in mind, the workplace is still “one size fits all” to a degree. A common tech industry office layout includes an open floor plan with many closely spaced desks, which promotes endless opportunities for employee distraction; this is not a good fit for employees who benefit from working in a quieter environment.
The other way in which employees “fit in” is person-organization fit, the degree to which an employee’s values match the climate and culture of the organization. Twitter pioneered the fully remote work model, driven by the radically innovative change required in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. As the health crisis dissipated, Twitter not only retained the remote work model, it also preserved the “day of rest” policy established during the pandemic, which was a company-wide day off to give employees a chance to disconnect and focus on their overall health. Attrition was in line with the industry average, between 14 and 16 percent, and soared to 18.3 percent after Musk’s purchase of the company; many Twitter employees exited the company because they had concerns with company leadership’s handling of the acquisition, and because of Musk’s evident disregard of employee wellbeing in connection to the company (Dang & Balu, 2022).
Commitment to team over self
Herrera and De Las Heras-Rosas (2021) link psychological contract (reciprocal obligations and benefits in a relationship of exchange) to organizational commitment (the aspirations of an employee to highly perform for an employer). Employees who work flexible hours are more likely to remain loyal because they can balance work and home without feeling as if they are failing one or the other. A demonstration by Twitter of its dedication to employee welfare through a permanent option for flexible telework would generate employee commitment to the team, and drive success for the company. A recent Stanford study found individuals who work remotely are more productive than their office-based counterparts by 13 percent, experiencing improved focus, fewer workday distractions, and the flexibility to meet family commitments and childcare Silvermann, 2023).
Although equipping employees for successful remote work has upfront costs for the telecom technology (software licenses for messaging apps such as Microsoft Teams or Slack, video cameras, headsets, etc.), the one-time initial procurement of equipment to support telework could potentially result in a return on investment in a matter of months for both employers and employees. Companies pay upward of hundreds of thousands of dollars per month to lease office space, and employees expend time and money for their daily commutes. Decreased overhead costs keeps more of the company’s money in its coffers for potential investment into other opportunities, and reduces the need for employees to maintain a mode of transportation, providing an option to sell a vehicle and eliminate payments, gasoline costs, and insurance, reinforcing commitment to the organization.
