Microsoft executives have promised employees flexibility with remote work, but the software giant may revisit its stance depending on productivity levels. According to sources who spoke with Business Insider, Scott Guthrie, executive vice president of Microsoft"s Cloud and AI division, recently told staff there are no current plans to change remote work policies.
However, Guthrie indicated that could change if data shows that productivity is declining. Fortune has learned that the company measures productivity but wouldn"t specify what those metrics are and how the company tracks them.
Keith Boyd, a Microsoft IT senior director, wrote about the hybrid work approach in an August post;
If you make the time to do it right, your employees will be more engaged, more productive, and more connected, even when they’re miles away. And they’ll be far less likely to leave for a competitor who has a more sophisticated and flexible model than you do.
That wait-and-see approach compares to Amazon, which recently ordered corporate workers back into the office three days a week. The move has rankled many tech workers who have had remote work flexibility during the pandemic. Experts say the forced return-to-office policy could result in employees looking for jobs with companies offering better remote work options.
A survey by anonymous job reviews site Blind found that 73% of verified Amazon employees are considering quitting in response to the return-to-office policy. As offices reopen across industries, the balance between worker preferences and company expectations is a challenge with no easy answers. While remote work boomed during COVID, in-person collaboration remains important to some businesses.
Microsoft aims to take an empirical approach by linking future policies to productivity data. However, how those metrics are defined and tracked will be key to transparency and fairness.