Google and JPMorgan have each told staff that office attendance will be factored into performance evaluations. The US law firm Davis Polk informed employees that fewer days in the office would result in lower bonuses. And Meta and Amazon both told employees they’re now monitoring badge swipes, with potential consequences for workers who don’t comply with attendance policies – including job loss. Increasingly, workers across many jobs and sectors appear to be barrelling towards the same fate.
In some ways, it’s unsurprising bosses are turning back to attendance as a standard. After all, we’ve long been conditioned to believe showing up is vital to success, from some of our earliest days. In school, perfect attendance is often still seen a badge of honour. The obsession with attendance has also been a mainstay of workplace culture for decades; pre-pandemic, remote work was largely unheard of, and employees were expected to be physically present at their desks throughout the workday.
Yet after the success of flexible arrangements during the pandemic, attendance is still entrenched as a core metric. What’s the point?
There was a time when I would have jumped at the chance to work for one of these companies.
Hell, I even interviewed with Google 17 years ago (for a position that I was thoroughly overqualified for).
But, these days I don’t think they could offer me enough money to convince me it would be worth it… Unless there was a HUGE upfront signing bonus that wouldn’t need to be repaid no matter what happens.
They’re shooting themselves in the foot by drastically reducing the talent pool available to them.
It’s a bold strategy, Cotton. Let’s see how it works out for them.