Workday bets big on staff coming back to the office by splurging $172.5m on HQ and five more Bay Area buildings
- Reference: 1616593640
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2021/03/24/workday_building_purchases/
- Source link:
According to [1]the Mercury News , the application vendor has bought six buildings in Pleasanton, in the East Bay, including its existing HQ complex in an all-cash deal.
[2]
Workday's financial performance has held up in the pandemic, or rather it's topline has: the company reported $4.32bn in revenue for the [3]12 months ended 31 January 2021 , up 19 per cent year-on-year. Operating losses halved to $248.6m.
Despite the company doing quite well out of software that can be used from anywhere, CEO Aneel Bhusri has said back to the office is the preferred direction of travel as virus-related lockdowns abate.
[4]
Back to the office with you: 'Perhaps 5 days is too much family time' – Workday CEO [5]READ MORE
Speaking on a [6]Goldman Sachs call in January , he said he was "a big believer that we're going to be back in the office."
On working remotely, he added: "It is hard to collaborate. It's hard to really have a great culture and an inspired workforce if you're just on Zoom every day. And I think in the early days, people were excited about this remote work, but 10 months into it, most people want to get back into the office."
Bhusri talked of the "mental health" benefits of "family time" and described this as a "silver lining" to lockdowns, but he mused that ""maybe five days is too much family time. One or two days is a good amount.
Now it seems Workday employees will have a great deal more office to go back to. So it's off to their 410,000 square feet for Workday employees, we assume.
Nonetheless, Workday's move is at odds with the prevailing wind among large tech companies.
[7]Fujitsu and [8]Dell have told employees not to expect routinely returning to the office even after the pandemic is over.
Google has said it would allow the [9]most employees to work from home until September 2021, and experiment with a hybrid model that combines office-based and remote working after that.
In a company memo, CEO Sundar Pichai said Google wanted to test its hypothesis that "a flexible work model will lead to greater productivity, collaboration and well-being."
Twitter has also announced a permanent work-from-home policy.
Meanwhile, SaaS behemoth Salesforce, San Francisco's largest employer, [10]has reportedly cancelled the lease on an unbuilt 325,000sqft tower. Its headquarters are already in the city.
Earlier this year, Brent Hyder, Salesforce president and chief people officer, [11]said that "the employee experience is about more than ping-pong tables and snacks" as he announced an end to the assumption that most staff would work from the office, and introduced a flexible working plan.
[12]
Still, Workday clearly believes it will get value from its $172.5m office investment. ®
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[1] https://www.mercurynews.com/2021/03/23/workday-buys-pleasanton-buildings-headquarters-big-real-estate-tech/
[2] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offprem/saas&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2YFtwNH76YO9EcIHOz7@R2AAAAAk&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[3] https://www.theregister.com/2021/02/26/salesforce_workday_fy21/
[4] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offprem/saas&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33YFtwNH76YO9EcIHOz7@R2AAAAAk&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[5] https://www.theregister.com/2021/01/18/workday_ceo_says_oracle_way/
[6] https://www.theregister.com/2021/01/18/workday_ceo_says_oracle_way/
[7] https://www.theregister.com/2020/07/06/fujitsu_we_are_closing_50/
[8] https://www.theregister.com/2020/08/28/dell_q2_2021_work_from_home/
[9] https://www.theregister.com/2020/12/14/google_work_from_home/
[10] https://www.michigansthumb.com/bayarea/article/salesforce-cancels-office-lease-san-francisco-16015817.php
[11] https://www.theregister.com/2021/02/10/salesforce_wfh/
[12] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offprem/saas&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44YFtwNH76YO9EcIHOz7@R2AAAAAk&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[13] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
Nope
No problems here with collaboration, onboarding, ideas exchange when WFH. I'm struggling to think of any activity that we used do in person that can't be replaced with some combination of miro, chat and video conferencing. Even pre-lockdown, "in person brainstorming" was a bunch of people working on Miro on their own laptop in one small poorly ventilated room.
Re: Nope
You clearly don't have network connectivity issues. I've a 900kbs uplink speed when it isn't raining on FTTC. I have no 5G connectivity options and 4G signal is unreliable. Office working is definitely not disappearing any time soon for me.
Re: Nope
You clearly don't have network connectivity issues.
This is true; synchronous gigabit FTTP at home. However, I did get locked down at my parents when we visited at Christmas* for a 3 week visit that turned into 3 months, and manged fine on a very long line FTTC connection too - 20Mbps down, 1MBps up.
* We got Covid tests** and then isolated for 2 weeks before travelling by car, and left before London was locked down
** Offered to us by the local council
Re: Nope
An international conference today on Zoom with around 40 participants (without video but with desktop presentations) took a lot less than 900 kb/s. So it can be done, although I do sympathise with your predicament. It has been suggested that getting your MP involved can increase your broadband performance.
Re: Nope
At Stryker HQ, meetings that had more than local people -- quite often -- used one platform or another (no telling what they use now; I left 3 years ago) with all the local people huddled in one room since the desk phones were old (speaker but no mic), rarely anyone had headsets, etc. Sometimes it was phone-call-only, sometimes desktop share actually worked.
In current role, we often started projects that way using Webex, mostly for the desktop sharing. Everyone had laptops and often brought them. Then everyone slowly migrated back to their own desks and still used the Webex, especially once the computer-phone audio got bridged. During pandemic, we all converted to a competitor (no, I'm not telling) but the meetings haven't changed one bit. A month ago they also cancelled the former phone/voicemail service so my office desk phone is dead and my line routes to my laptop as a softphone.
Force me back to the office; I still won't leave my desk just like I don't leave my "home office" now. Same laptop, same headset, same El Reg to read.
"a great culture and an inspired workforce"
Yes, he's an HR man through and through. It's easier to insult your staff's intelligence if they're in the office.
Ooh Pleasanton! Memories of Stoneridge vs Dublin Place.
If you consider 5 days family time, too much family time then maybe you should reconsider your family life...