Employees want to go back to the office

People have changed their minds about working from home since the coronavirus caused offices to close last year, Cisco CEO Chuck Robbins said during a earnings conference call with analysts on Tuesday. At first, people liked their new distributed arrangements, but now there are people who want to go back to work, he said.

Cisco, network switches, phones, and Wi-Fi hotspots installed on corporate sites are among the companies that can benefit from a widespread return to the office. The state of the pandemic continues to flow and Robbins ’words communicate the lack of certainty around the consequences and how this will affect business.

“I think we’ve moved on to this phase where people are really struggling mentally, people aren’t enjoying themselves,” Robbins said.

Just as Robbins talks regularly with customers, he also communicates with Cisco employees themselves. In the call he made contributions he had recently received to assert his opinion.

“One of our employees told me the other day,‘ I don’t mind the option of working from home. I don’t like being forced to work from home, ”he said.

Cisco workers have other pressures to deal with. In August, after reporting three-quarters of the revenue decline caused by business challenges, Cisco, once the world’s most valuable company, announced a cost-cutting program that included offering voluntary early retirement . Cisco employees can work from home until June 30, a spokesman said.

Robbins has his own idea about the role of the office beyond Cisco.

“I really think it’s going to be hybrid where people will work from home and everyone lands here where they will 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 accommodations customers entail based on employees’ concern about space issues, concern about future pandemics or other concerns. That’s what we don’t know yet.”

Technology companies promise more and more flexibility around remote work when the pandemic ends. On Tuesday, Salesforce announced that most of its employees would work “flexible” hours with one or three days in the office a week, while Twitter and Dropbox have told employees they can work from home permanently.

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