The champion of teleworking in turn gives in to the call of the face-to-face. The Zoom online video platform, heavily used by teleworkers, recently called on its own employees to return to the premises more, says the Anglo-Saxon press, including Business Insider. The company, which has experienced meteoric growth during the Covid-19 pandemic, is now advocating for an organized “hybrid approach”, according to the BBC.
Zoom calls on its employees living less than 80 kilometers from an office to return to the offices at least two days a week. A way to improve productivity and efficiency, while continuing to use “[its] own technologies […] so that [its] employees and dispersed teams stay connected and work efficiently”, argues management, quoted by the British media. The group, which benefited from confinement in previous years, is now suffering from the return of employees to the office around the world. It thus had to lay off 15% of its workforce last February during a massive social plan which affected some 1,300 employees. “The global economic uncertainty and its effects on our customers” prompted Zoom to “recalibrate so that we can face the economic environment”, then justified the general manager, Eric Yuan.
Three years after the start of the pandemic, finding the right balance between teleworking and face-to-face remains difficult, for employers and employees alike. The platform is thus the victim of a major trend aimed at eliminating, at least partially, teleworking. In recent months, many companies have called on their employees to return to the office, believing face-to-face to be more efficient and productive. Google, Meta, Twitter, Apple… The examples are legion, in the United States, including among the Tech giants. Zoom is thus only the latest example, but perhaps also one of the most iconic.