This year, few companies are hotter than Nvidia. Against the background of the booming development of artificial intelligence, its high-performance chips are favored by companies such as Amazon, Meta, and Google.
However, while these and many other companies have issued return-to-office requirements, Nvidia, which has about 26,000 employees worldwide and a valuation of more than $1 trillion, has bucked the trend by not giving remote workers time to commute to the office. pressure.
In May 2020, Huang said he had “no problem” with letting employees work away from home indefinitely. “There’s no doubt we’re going to do that,” he Tell VentureBeat at the time.
Today, the company maintains this policy while also providing employees with luxurious office spaces (see below) where employees can gather and collaborate. Nvidia lets employees decide whether to work from home, a coffee shop, or the office. The arrangement “is a way for employees to balance personal and work obligations while preparing for the future so they can focus on their life’s work,” said Beau Davidson, the company’s vice president of employee experience. ”. Tell Business Observer.
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In contrast, other companies are increasingly demanding that employees work more in the office. Amazon Chief Executive Andy Jassy recently warned employees that if they continue to ignore requests to return to the office, “it may not serve you well.” It follows an employee walkout to protest the policy, with one employee leading the charge insisting, “We can be more efficient and customer-focused, we can do good work, we can make a difference, and it doesn’t have to be in an office building.” ”
Nvidia’s Huang seems to agree. However, employees prefer a hybrid work environment, “and I’m very happy with that,” he told VentureBeat.
Unlike other CEOs, however, he stuck to the policy. A few years ago, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg boasted: “We will be the most forward-thinking company of our size in remote work and have a thoughtful and responsible plan to make it happen. goal.” He estimates that within the next five to 10 years, about half of the company’s employees will be working remotely. Fast forward to today, and his employees must return to the office three days a week and have their presence tracked via card keys and other tools. Those who don’t comply may be fired or receive a hit in performance reviews.
However, Meta employees returning to the office reportedly struggled to book conference rooms or even find a desk that could be used throughout the day. Adam Mosseri, Meta’s head of Instagram, wrote on Threads that “we haven’t found a way to mix things up yet.” Meanwhile, Zuckerberg touted the cutting-edge Metaverse headset, which he posted on Lex Friedman Podcast“I think it brings us closer to being able to do physical work in different places… I think we have more than just video conferencing and the basic technology that we have today.”
Other companies are taking advantage of preferential treatment to get employees back into the office. 90% of more than 400 U.S. CEOs surveyed by KPMG said they reward those who put in the work with favorable assignments, raises and promotions.
But Rob Sadow, CEO of Scoop Technologies, maker of hybrid office productivity apps, believes many company leaders are still stuck in the past. “Sometimes the desire to return to the office is more about fear and a desire to repeat past experiences than about optimizing what the future will look like,” he told the Wall Street Journal. observer.
Another company bucking the trend of returning to the office is software giant Atlassian, which makes collaboration tools like Jira.
“We want people to be able to work from home, from cafes, from offices, but we don’t really care where they work – we care about the output they produce,” co-chief executive Scott Farquhar told Australia 60 minutes plans for August, adding, “I’ll probably come into the office about once a quarter.”
The company still has ambitious new office plans, including in Seattle and Sydney, where it has broken ground on a 40-story office. Headquarters Featuring lush interiors and spaces designed for staff gatherings. Now, the company no longer evaluates its real estate strategy by swiping a card, but by metrics such as cost per visit and the extent to which employees use the office and engage with it.
Likewise, Nvidia’s newest headquarters is an airy, stunning 750,000-square-foot building known as Voyager (see above), rejecting boxy structures and instead emphasizing public space and views for everyone.
Sadow believes that by giving employees the option to work remotely or collaborate in cutting-edge office spaces, Nvidia gains a “pretty meaningful talent advantage.”
In fact, that advantage could help it attract workers alienated by strict return-to-office rules elsewhere. A recent survey by Deloitte and Workplace Intelligence showed that two-thirds of senior executives said they would likely quit if forced to return to the office five days a week. The report warns that companies that force workers back into cubicles “risk losing leadership and struggle to recruit new talent.”
Nvidia doesn’t seem to need to worry too much about this risk.
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