Electric vehicle company Tesla Inc TSLA announced recently it would require remote workers to return to the office for in-person work. It appeared the company is pretty serious with a new report that stated workers were being tracked and then emailed if they hadn’t returned.
What Happened: Tesla employees shared images of an email they received from the company that showed their in-person attendance was being tracked.
An anonymous employee posted an email that was shared by Teslarati.
The email highlighted an employee had not entered a Tesla facility for 16 days over a 30-day period ending on June 28, 2022.
“As a reminder, all employees are expected to be back in the office full time,” the email read.
The email told employees that if they hadn’t returned due to illness, vacation or travel to make sure to get this time cleared with a manager and copy the email absence@tesla.com on the notice.
A Tesla employee confirmed the validity of the email to Business Insider.
Related Link: Tesla Q1 Earnings Highlights: Electric Vehicle Maker Hits Record Revenue, Deliveries, Profits And Margins
Why It’s Important: Tesla CEO Elon Musk told Tesla employees in June that they would no longer be able to work from home.
“Anyone who wishes to do remote work must be in the office for a minimum (and I mean *minimum*) of 40 hours per week or depart Tesla. This is less than we ask of factory workers,” Musk said in an email.
The email said that workers who don’t return to the office would be recognized as resigned from Tesla.
Musk told employees who wished to continue working from home to “pretend to work somewhere else.”
Benzinga recently reported Tesla was not prepared for workers to return to the office in California. Workers reported a lack of parking spots and had to be shuttled to the office. Tesla workers also complained of there not being enough desks to work at and slow WiFi for those who managed to find a desk.
If Musk’s acquisition of social media platform Twitter Inc TWTR goes through, workers at the company could see a similar fate. Musk said in a recent employee meeting that he preferred to have Twitter employees return to work in person, with some exceptions.
If employees are “exceptional” at their job, Musk said they could work remotely.
“Tesla makes cars, and you can’t make cars remotely,” Musk said.
Business Insider reported JPMorgan Chase & Co. JPM began tracking attendance by workers in April. Several employees told Insider that the tracking led to them looking for new jobs.
Recruiters for big technology companies including Amazon.com, Inc. AMZN and Microsoft Corporation MSFT have reached out to Tesla employees on LinkedIn in a move to grab employees upset by Musk’s new office mandates.
TSLA Price Action: Tesla shares are down 0.96% to $678.86 on Thursday.
Photo courtesy of Tesla.
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