- The CEO of Dropbox says that RTO mandates are exceeded in the modern world today
- Drew Houston compares the rules to shopping centers and cinemas
- Dropbox promoted a hybrid by working for a while
Dropbox CEO Drew Houston struck companies forcing their employees to return to the office (RTO) instead of continuing to adopt hybrid work.
Speaking on an episode of FortuneThe podcast of “Leadership Next”, Houston compared RTO orders to shopping centers and cinemas, where similar offers to force people were less than successful.
“We can be much less stupid than forcing people in a car three days a week or something else, to be literally back on the same zoom meeting that they would have been at home,” said Houston. “There is a better way to do it.”
“Confidence on surveillance”
Dropbox has long been at the forefront of the encouragement of hybrid work, because in 2021, he introduced a rule “90/10” where employees were authorized to work remotely for most of the year, and asked to attend certain out-of-site events to compensate for the remaining 10%.
“Forcing people in the office, it will probably be like trying to force people in shopping centers and cinemas,” said Houston. “Nothing bad with cinema, but it’s just a different world now.”
This is not the first time that Houston has promoted the virtues of remote work – in 2023, he noted that the work remotely gave companies “the keys that unlock all this future of work”.
“You need a different social contract and to abandon control,” he added, “but if you trust people and treat them like adults, they will behave like adults. Trust surveillance.”
Houston’s words intervene after several large technological companies have revealed RTO mandates.
This includes Google, which will apply a new hybrid work model by which employees are invited to come to the office at least three days a week, and those who do not comply could face consequences.
Dell also recently announced that he would end his hybrid working policy, all employees living within one hour from an office have now said to go in five days a week.
Via Initiate of Business
