CTO urges employees to return to office in memo: “We will stop the madness of people working remotely…”

General manager BoltThe European ride-hailing and delivery app, which competes directly with Uber, has taken a strong stance on remote work. General manager Markus Willig called low office attendance “shame” and asked the staff back to the office for 12 days a month, which is approximately 3 days a week starting in January.
According to a Business Insider report, Villig criticized the “insanity” of employees working in holiday destinations such as Bali. In a memo to employees, he also raised concerns about declining office traffic and its impact on company culture, innovation and productivity.
He said there was a need to “restart our aspirational culture” and compared them to tech giants such as Amazon, Tesla and Apple, which have implemented various return-to-office mandates.

Read Bolt’s CEO’s full memo to employees:

Following on from All-hands on Tuesday, I will explain my views on the new return to office and location policies and your role as a manager in supporting this transition.
The summary is this: I strongly believe that we are better off working in person rather than remotely.
The longer version is that we as a company have a choice to make. Either we reset our ambitious culture to compete in the big leagues, or we fall into mediocrity. Even the biggest companies, from Amazon to Tesla to Apple, understand that in order to stay on top, they need to maintain an intense culture and bring people into the office 3-5 days a week. We’re a tiny company compared to them, and to ever reach that scale, we’ll have to work harder and innovate more than them.
Over the past few years, we have seen too much complacency in how we recruit, where people live, and when and where they work. We are too spread out, people feel disconnected, the attrition rate is too high, and our offices are empty. I think it’s a disgrace to our culture that less than 50% of employees come into the office +2 days a week.
From January 1st we will return to a highly efficient organization:
Mandatory presence in the office 12 days a month for all employees.
Min 2 days a week. Team leaders have the power to do more—many sales teams already do 5.
We’ve already invested millions in creating stunning offices, but in locations where space is at a premium, we set specific days for each team so they can be spread out well.
Relative to the top technology companies we think this is generous and gives employees more flexibility.
We will stop the madness of people working remotely from places like Bali. This is a vacation, not what we hired them for.
Reducing the number of sites to 2 for global roles.
By default, each department will have 2 hubs – the first in Tallinn and by default a secondary one in London.
Some larger departments, such as technology, retain more. If you have questions, ask your department head.
For people to get the most out of their time in the office, their team needs to be there. Some departments have disparate teams and we are consolidating that.
To be clear, this refers to global roles, not local or regional ones.
There are 5 advantages of personal work:
Raise the productivity bar. We see a strong correlation between office attendance, productivity and engagement.
Improve collaboration. Face-to-face meetings are more effective than video calls.
Improve relationships within and between teams. Face-to-face interactions with people are better for resolving conflicts and building positive relationships. Video calls are transactional, and coffee or lunch together is much better for building relationships.
Improved information flow and idea generation. Informal conversations in the office cannot be replicated remotely.
Improve mental state. Positive personal communication is a huge benefit when dealing with stress.
As managers, I ask you to help me with this:
Sell ​​this message to your teams.
Set an example for them by being in the office more often starting next week.
Create an environment where your teams want to come to the office. Working in person should be exciting and fun, not a chore.
Monitor and manage poor attendance. We’re absolutely fine if some people decide it’s not for them, as the cultural impact far outweighs that.
Bolt’s culture is unique and we need to work every day to maintain it. I can’t do this alone – we all have to take responsibility for making this a fantastic place to work, where people come to do the best work of their lives.