Is It Morally Wrong For Office Workers To Demand Work From Home? - Free Websites, Share News And Posts Publicly

FRI, MAY 19, 2023

Is It Morally Wrong for Office Workers to Demand Work from Home?

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Tennessee senator Marsha Blackburn this month introducing a measure that would require federal workers to revert to pre-pandemic in-office work policies. And Tesla CEO Elon Musk telling CNBC this week that workers returning to the office is a moral issue. Is it? Jon Fortt is here to weigh in.

JON:

“No, it’s not morally wrong for workers to want to work from home.

My favorite thing about this, though, is that Elon Musk, the richest man in the world, is making an inequality argument. He says people who make cars, cook food and repair houses can’t work from home, so why should the laptop class feel entitled to. And I’m just saying … Elon: If we’re drawing up a list of the morally questionable privileges in our society, remote options for working moms? Nowhere near the top of the list.

Far higher might be laws that allow billionaires to borrow against their unrealized stock gains and defer paying taxes while frontline workers have to rack up debt to make ends meet in a hyper-inflationary economy. Or billionaires who will buy a social media company and then refuse to pay money the company owes vendors like landlords, event planners and transportation providers.

What office workers are pushing for is flexibility that saves them precious time. In Elon’s case, flexibility means riding a private jet around to get work done or what I’ll call “homing from work” — sleeping in the office at Twitter or the factory floor at Tesla. Restaurant workers can’t do what Elon does for flexibility either.”

But if knowledge workers stay home for their personal convenience, couldn’t that inconvenience their employers, and local businesses?

JON:

“On the other hand, there are real moral problems with this work from home push.

Let’s take Elon Musk out of it, because he’s kind of a foil. Just look at what’s best for teams, businesses and communities.

Research just a few weeks old from Harvard Business School shows there are divides opening up — based on geography, type of job, and culture. Job postings allowing one or more days a week of remote work are most common in San Francisco, Boston and New York. Miami and cities in the South? Almost back to pre-pandemic remote work listings. By job type, finance, tech and communications are most likely to offer remote options — especially if they’re higher-paying. And then there’s culture. In automotive, the study found half of Honda’s engineering jobs offered remote options. Tesla, not so much.

So what’s the likely impact? In San Francisco, nearly a billion dollars could come out of the budget over six years from lost tax revenue from vacant offices, according to a city economist. Small businesses are getting gutted, too, to the tune of $3,500 per year remote workers aren’t spending near the office. Young workers get less benefit from shared knowledge. At a point, it’s selfish. And like Elon said, wrong.”

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*Why LinkedIn? On the Other Hand is about civil debate that illuminates the relevant facts. We’ve found that LinkedIn does a good job fostering that kind of environment.

On the Other Hand is Jon Fortt’s weekly segment on Squawk Box, Thursdays in the 7 a.m. ET hour. He’s been writing it just about every week since August 2020. The second (or first) argument each week isn’t necessarily the one Jon agrees with. He just makes an honest effort to construct the best argument he can for each side.

When he’s not debating himself, Jon co-anchors Overtime at 4 p.m. alongside Morgan Brennan. Jon also researches and writes the weekly Working Lunch segment on Power Lunch, Fridays in the 2 p.m. ET hour, where he introduces viewers to founders and CEOs through their origin stories and strategic goals.