Salesforce's Marc Benioff says in-person office attendance is low because employees are 'so productive at home'
REUTERS/Elijah Nouvelage
- Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff says employees aren't returning to in-office work environments at the rate CEOs expected.
- Benioff is pleasantly surprised at the global shift in office culture, citing increased productivity at home.
- Several CEOs are currently trying to entice or straight up demand workers return to their offices.
- See more stories on Insider's business page.
Marc Benioff thinks remote work is here to stay - and that workers are just as successful working from home as they are in offices.
The Salesforce CEO appeared CNBC's "Mad Money" with Jim Cramer to discuss a noticeable change he has seen in office culture during the coronavirus pandemic.
"[Employees] can do their job at home. They can be successful from anywhere," Benioff told the news outlet. "The companies and our customers are successful. It's incredible, but the way they're being successful has completely changed."
The cloud-based software company, which powers services like Slack, did better with remote work conditions than other companies during the COVID-19 pandemic. Benioff's comments came as Salesforce stock rose following higher-than-expected second quarter earnings.
The remarks are also counter to the thinking of some of Benioff's CEO counterparts, like Apple's Tim Cook and JP Morgan's Jamie Dimon. Both are requiring their employees make full returns to the office despite workers' desires and continuing concerns of the coronavirus Delta variant.
"The phenomenon that I see happening globally is not as many employees are coming back into their offices locally as any CEO expected," Benioff told Cramer in the interview. "You're really starting see some very low attendance numbers in offices because employees are so productive at home."
Many full-time, office-based workers got a taste of remote work due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and their biggest desire as workplaces begin to reopen is increased flexibility. A survey from PwC saw an increase in remote workers never wanting to go back to the office, from 29% in January 2021 to 41% in August. Two-thirds of Americans are even considering looking for new jobs where they can have more a flexible work-life balance and less in-person office interaction.
Tech companies like Salesforce and Google, which can adapt more easily to remote work conditions, have been largely supportive of their employees continuing office-home hybrid models and opportunities for employees to request to work from different locations.
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