Malcolm Gladwell is upset. “I know it’s a hassle to come into the office,” the writer told the Diary of a CEO podcast recently, “but if you’re just sitting in your pyjamas in your bedroom, is that the work life you want to live? Don’t you want to feel part of something?” And he continued: “I’m really getting very frustrated with the inability of people in positions of leadership to explain this effectively to their employees.”
Many bosses have been trying for months now to persuade, or command, colleagues to spend more time in the office. But the results have been mixed. Apple’s chief executive Tim Cook has made more than one attempt to introduce a policy of three fixed days in the office, and has been met with resistance each time. The company’s new policy of three days a week in the office takes effect from September 5.
The low point, from Apple’s point of view, came in May when Ian Goodfellow, their former director of machine learning, quit to join Google after objecting to the company’s return-to-the-office policy. When the top machine learning person quits because his employer is treating him too much like a machine something has gone wrong.