Salaried Ford Employees to Work Remotely Through June
With so many individuals still working remotely to combat The Dreaded Coronavirus™ from spreading, there have to be thousands of pools on when employees will finally be allowed to return to their cobweb-filled offices. But they have to be getting pretty boring because its hard to imagine anybody confidently putting their money down on late 2021 when this whole thing started in February and the press still thought it wouldn’t be a big deal. The narrative has definitely changed since then and continued social distancing has become a popular solution among businesses, even as state-sanctioned lockdown protocols decline after a few were ruled to be unconstitutional.
On Thursday, Ford decided to keep most of its salaried employees at home until at least June of 2021. That’s eight more months of not going into the office and matches the timetable General Motors issued a few weeks ago.
“The health and safety of our workforce continues to be our top priority,” Ford explained. “With careful consideration of the current environment including local and state requirements, as well as ongoing planning for our work spaces, we have extended the current work arrangement for our North America team working remotely to continue through June.”
General Motors has already said the same, indicating that it couldn’t possibly entertain the idea of people returning en mass until June 30th, 2021. But that doesn’t mean a return to normal, GM doesn’t want to pay for more office space than it needs to either. “During this period, we’re listening to feedback and working on the elements of a more flexible work culture,” a corporate spokesman explained to Automotive News last month.
Meanwhile, there are heaps of companies that have already committed themselves to allowing staff to work remotely until the end of time — including Coinbase, Facebook, Shopify, Square, and Twitter. Amazon and Google have also toyed with the idea of keeping employees home on a permanent basis, but have thus far decided only to make it mandatory through the first few months of 2021. While all cited health and safety as the main reason for the decisions, a few actually acknowledged an opportunity to save on operating costs.
[Image: Ford Motor Co.]
A staunch consumer advocate tracking industry trends and regulation. Before joining TTAC, Matt spent a decade working for marketing and research firms based in NYC. Clients included several of the world’s largest automakers, global tire brands, and aftermarket part suppliers. Dissatisfied with the corporate world and resentful of having to wear suits everyday, he pivoted to writing about cars. Since then, that man has become an ardent supporter of the right-to-repair movement, been interviewed on the auto industry by national radio broadcasts, driven more rental cars than anyone ever should, participated in amateur rallying events, and received the requisite minimum training as sanctioned by the SCCA. Handy with a wrench, Matt grew up surrounded by Detroit auto workers and managed to get a pizza delivery job before he was legally eligible. He later found himself driving box trucks through Manhattan, guaranteeing future sympathy for actual truckers. He continues to conduct research pertaining to the automotive sector as an independent contractor and has since moved back to his native Michigan, closer to where the cars are born. A contrarian, Matt claims to prefer understeer — stating that front and all-wheel drive vehicles cater best to his driving style.
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I am a salesguy, and can tell you that I can accomplish lots of mundane paperwork like reports from my home office. I can make phone calls, and I can send emails...but... The kind of product I need to sell does NOT sell without a long series of collaborative in-person meetings, during which time mutual trust is slowly developed. Without that trust, the wheels grind to a halt. I do NOT believe that the human psyche will ever be able to adjust to establishing trust via Zoom..it will NEVER replace face to face discussion, handshakes (ewwwww!!!!) and some socializing on a golf course or while breaking bread together. As long as Ford's white collar workforce is at home, they will churn out whatever paperwork is required, but don't depend on the business to expand or for innovation to occur. Best selling F150s and Mustangs don't get designed by lonely artistic types locked in their home office!
My job is currently doing a hybrid strategy where we're in the office roughly half the time, and working from home the rest of the time. There have been a few occasions where I've gotten my days mixed up and overslept. I presume this is something the company understands will happen occasionally and is pretty understanding when it happens. But for my internet connection which isn't as robust as it could be, I like working from home. Even though my job is straight forward, the show connection can get grating. My other experience with working from home was 10 years ago. It was 100% asynchronous. There were times I'd be awake at 2 in the morning and decide to work straight through to 10 and be done for the day; it was nice. The problem was that what was sold as a "perk" was really just the company testing their system before shipping our jobs to India.