Marc Benioff: Some workers do “better” in the office.
As companies tried to get employees back to work in person last year, Salesforce and its CEO Marc Benioff criticized the idea of clerical mandates. Benioff argued in June that “office dates are never going to work.” And in September, the company’s chief people officer, Brent Hyder, wrote in a company blog post that “we’ve never had office mandates at Salesforce and we never will.”
But as Salesforce’s challenges mount, Benioff has changed his mindset about remote work — at least when it comes to productivity.
“For our new hires, we know empirically that they do better when they’re in the office, meeting people, boarding, being trained,” Benioff said in an interview with the Continue with Kara Swisher Podcast recorded at last week’s Upfront Summit and released Monday. “If they’re at home and don’t go through that process, we don’t think they’re going to be as successful.”
Benioff suggested that Salesforce would require different amounts of time in the office for different departments. Engineers only have to come 10 days a quarter, but administrative staff three days a week. Sales and marketing people have to be in the office four days a week when they’re not making sales calls.
But Benioff refused to call the new structure a mandate for a return to office. “I don’t want to force anyone,” he said, warning that pushing the issue too hard would lead to an outflow of talent. “We don’t want to lose our stars.”
Instead, Benioff wanted Salesforce to give employees “reasons” for coming back to the office, saying employees are still free to ask their managers to classify them as fully remote. However, Benioff suggested that Salesforce would always need some people working in person, saying that “in some cases people should be in the office.”
Salesforce did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The Salesforce CEO has previously hinted that some roles at the company would be brought back to the office. Speaking to analysts in December, Benioff said some positions at the company are “factory jobs — people who have to be here.” That same month, he told employees on the company’s #all-salesforce Slack channel that employees hired during the pandemic were “having a lot less productivity.”
Is remote work less productive?
Some business leaders argue that remote work hurts productivity and corporate culture. BlackRock CEO Larry Fink suggested last September that bringing workers back to the office would boost overall labor productivity and thereby help bring down inflation. In January, Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz lamented that the company’s homeworkers had lost both “the art of working together” and “the connection to a common mission, something bigger.”
Opinions differ on how remote work affects productivity. Surveys of workers show they believe they are more productive when working from home, while executives are less confident that remote workers are just as productive as on-site workers.
Salesforce is trying to cut costs after growth has slowed and activist investors have called for changes at the company. The company is shedding thousands of employees and cutting costs between $3 billion and $5 billion. It also dissolved its Mergers and Acquisitions Committee, ending a string of multi-billion-dollar acquisitions, such as the $27.7 billion purchase of Slack in 2021.
The cost-cutting seems to be working, at least for now. Salesforce reported adjusted earnings per share of $1.68 for the quarter ended January 31, beating expectations of $1.36 per share. The company also provided a better-than-expected revenue guidance for the current quarter.
On Monday, Benioff joked about the string of activist investors challenging Salesforce. “Actually, I need a CRM system just to keep things organized,” he said.
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