Zoom CEO says employees must return to the office as they can't build trust or innovate...

[midian182]

Facepalm: If there's one company that you'd expect to continue its work-from-home policy, it's Zoom. Yet the communication tech giant called employees back into the office earlier this month. Now, leaked audio from CEO Eric Yuan has revealed his thinking behind the decision: he believes working via video calls stifles innovation and doesn't allow people to build as much trust.

Zoom became synonymous with working from home during the lockdowns when the software allowed much of the world to stay indoors and continue their jobs.

While many companies have ended or limited remote work, it was especially surprising when Zoom did it, given the nature of its famed product. Yuan mandated that employees living within 50 miles of one of its offices will have to start coming in at least two days per week.

Leaked audio from an August 3 all-hands meeting shared with Insider revealed why Yuan made the controversial decision. He said that "remote work didn't allow people to build as much trust or be as innovative."

"In our early days, we all knew each other," Yuan said. "Over the past several years, we've hired so many new 'Zoomies' that it's really hard to build trust."

"Trust is a foundation for everything. Without trust, we will be slow."

Yuan claimed it was hard to come up with great ideas on Zoom, adding that employees cannot have a great conversation. He also said people cannot debate because they tend to be very friendly when joining a Zoom call. He obviously never saw some of the profanity-and-anger-filled clips that circulated during the pandemic.

Yuan's explanation seems to contradict Zoom's product page boasts of the video-calling software offering "immersive in-office collaboration right from home." Collaboration is mentioned three times on the page.

Elsewhere, the section of the company's website about Zoom's Meetings feature boasts that 95% of customers report a greater sense of trust and an increase in performance. Seems nobody told Yuan.

Following a furor over the policy, Zoom was also forced to update its Terms of Service this month to state it will not use audio, video, or chat customer content to train its artificial intelligence models without consent.

A recent survey found that 8 out of 10 executives regret implementing their return-to-office plans and would have done things differently if they'd had better access to workplace data.

Permalink to story.

https://www.techspot.com/news/99916-zoom-ceo-employees-must-return-office-they-cant.html

 

[Dimitriid]

Yuan claimed it was hard to come up with great ideas on Zoom, adding that employees cannot have a great conversation. He also said people cannot debate because they tend to be very friendly when joining a Zoom call.

At first glance it feels like separate points but honestly, it is the same underlying reason: Terrible managers refuse to actually learn how to lead people and want to be able to rely on things like intimidation and social pressure to come up with 'ideas' and 'have great conversations' all while having a lot more plausible deniability.

See on a Zoom call you can communicate what you actually want done that's work related easily: this is why productivity went up during the pandemic and it hasn't dropped off a cliff yet even while many positions remain remote permanently.

But what about those small moments where an employee suddenly decides to 'volunteer' to do lots of overtime or an employee gets frustrated and quits 'out of nowhere' and such? Those are often a direct consequences of managers constantly breathing over your shoulder, having 'great conversations' where you are encouraged to take on way too much responsibility or unrealistic deadlines and so on because not just non-verbal communication but the fact that there's no paper trail to unequivocally show how a manager is abusive and unreasonable because of course they'll rarely put that stuff in an email and by the same token they know not to say it on a recorded zoom call with other people watching.

Just overall really terrible bosses don't feel like actually managing their people to positive reinforcement, productive communication, fair workloads and realistic expectations.

 

[Uncle Al]

Just another clueless CEO that can't read the facts .....

 

[maxxcool7421]

At first glance it feels like separate points but honestly, it is the same underlying reason: Terrible managers refuse to actually learn how to lead people and want to be able to rely on things like intimidation and social pressure to come up with 'ideas' and 'have great conversations' all while having a lot more plausible deniability.

See on a Zoom call you can communicate what you actually want done that's work related easily: this is why productivity went up during the pandemic and it hasn't dropped off a cliff yet even while many positions remain remote permanently.

But what about those small moments where an employee suddenly decides to 'volunteer' to do lots of overtime or an employee gets frustrated and quits 'out of nowhere' and such? Those are often a direct consequences of managers constantly breathing over your shoulder, having 'great conversations' where you are encouraged to take on way too much responsibility or unrealistic deadlines and so on because not just non-verbal communication but the fact that there's no paper trail to unequivocally show how a manager is abusive and unreasonable because of course they'll rarely put that stuff in an email and by the same token they know not to say it on a recorded zoom call with other people watching.

Just overall really terrible bosses don't feel like actually managing their people to positive reinforcement, productive communication, fair workloads and realistic expectations.

^^ that ...shitty managers who used to be able to coerce and bully employees have discovered they can't any more .. and now that they have to actually do their own manger jobs have found they are terrible at it.

 

[axiomatic13]

I'm 55 years old and this sounds like something someone older than me would say about Zoom.

 

[3volv3d]

If a manager can't visit his departments, to see how they are doing, where problems lay, and how to fix them.
What motivations his staff may need. Other than a pay rise for under performing.
I can see why such a company would struggle. Zoom may be able to keep departments connected but if they are communicating poorly or in error its going to reflect in its performance.
It doesn't mean they can't stay home most the time right?
Team building must be hard when you aren't with one another. Bouncing ideas and thoughts around constantly?

 

[trgz]

Odd, I never needed a Zoom call (or indeed any other form of video call) to work well with my team. We were spread around the globe, though we did get together once or twice a year (never productive, but nice for a chat), and my last manager (at least the last one in this country) and I worked exceptionally well over the phone - usually only for a daily chat and a quick update. It worked well too with the previous two teams I was in, and they both were spread around the country. Must've worked from home for almost 13 years, and I found that I was more productive in isolation as only one other member of my team could contact me at once ;-)

 

[McMurdeR]

Because that doesn't send a message to your customers! Why not go ahead and tell them outright not to bother with Zoom? Hey, why not just close the company, because, you know, what's the point?

These "Way to go CEO!" moments are getting very frequent these days. But the cringe factor with this one is especially high.

 

[MyIOnU]

Yes people must return to work in office and stop using Zoom.

 

[ZedRM]

There have been a number of studies that have definitively shown that people who work remotely at home are much more productive than in an office setting. Companies need to quit denying the evidence and just go with the flow.

 

[toooooot]

There have been a number of studies that have definitively shown that people who work remotely at home are much more productive than in an office setting. Companies need to quit denying the evidence and just go with the flow.

Some are, others not so much.
People would not be talking about remote work if everything regarding it was great.

 

[ZedRM]

People would not be talking about remote work if everything regarding it was great.

I'm not saying it's perfect, but neither is anything else in life. What I'm saying is that it is excellent for many types of work. Zero commute times, thus less fuel used and whatnot. I could keep going with that list.. There are a lot of good things to be said about remote work.

 

[m3diapers]

Very funny. I worked for a couple gov jobs. I'd love to return to the office when I had to work in the field. It would be nice to use Zoom to interview gang members too. Just shnt up and work as you're supposed to. This won't be news if most of you perform as expected