Parents work from home with their two sons due to the 2020 coronavirus outbreak in Paris.
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People have changed their minds about working from home since the coronavirus led to office closures last year, Cisco CEO Chuck Robbins said in a conference call with analysts on Tuesday. At first, people liked their new, distributed arrangements, but now some people long to be back at work, he said.
Cisco, whose network switches, telephones and Wi-Fi access points are installed on corporate premises, is one of the companies that can benefit from a widespread return to the office. The state of the pandemic continues to fluctuate, and Robbins’ words communicate the lack of certainty surrounding the aftermath and how that will affect business.
“I think we’ve kind of gotten to that stage where people are struggling mentally, they are people – they don’t enjoy it,” Robbins said.
Just as Robbins regularly talks to customers, he also communicates with Cisco’s own employees. On the call, he brought up input he had recently received to make his point clear.
“One of our employees recently said to me:“ I don’t mind working from home. I don’t like to be forced to work from home, ”he said.
Cisco employees have to deal with different pressures. In August, after Cisco, once the world’s most valuable company, reported three-quarters of its declining revenues due to business challenges, it announced a cost reduction program that included voluntary early retirements. Cisco employees can work from home until June 30, a spokesperson said.
Robbins has his own idea of the role of the office outside of Cisco.
“I really believe it’s going to be a hybrid where people are going to work from home and everyone is landing here where they are going to work from home three days a week and work from the office two days a week and vice versa,” he said. “The question is what accommodation that will lead to customers based on employee concerns about space issues, concerns about future pandemics or other concerns. We just don’t know that yet.”
Tech companies are promising more and more flexibility around remote working when the pandemic ends. On Tuesday, Salesforce announced that the majority of its employees would work on a “flex” schedule with one to three days a week in the office, while Twitter and Dropbox have both told employees they can work from home permanently.
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