Quitting instead of returning to the office
CNN reported on 8 September 2023 Dating app Grindr loses nearly half its staff after trying to force a return to office:
LGBTQ dating app Grindr ended its remote work policies and forced employees to relocate. Nearly half of its staff left.
In early August, Grindr announced a return-to-office mandate. The policy gave workers two weeks to choose between relocating to their respective team’s newly assigned “hub” city to work in-person twice a week or leave the company with severance, according to the Communications Workers of America (CWA).
Fuck around and find out.
Here is the kicker:
Many of these workers were hired remotely and were required to relocate to new “hub” cities — New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Washington D.C.
When you are used to change term of service on your users, you are tempted to do the same to your employees. Good on the workers. It’s difficult to quit a job, but when it’s the only way… And Grindr workers recently unionized joining the Communication Workers of America.
Remote work has been the single effective action to lower greenhouse gas emissions as studies show that working remotely cut them in half for the worker.
While return to the offices plans remain unpopular, most of the big tech want to use performance as a way to dismiss employees that don’t “comply” to the forced return to an office. Meta, Amazon, Google, Apple, Zoom.
I wonder what it will take to change that…