Internet Brands, the parent company of WebMD, has gone viral for an internal video urging workers to return to the office. It was met with backlash, stemming from its perceived mocking and threatening tone, as well as its lack of empathy for employees’ preferences and well-being.
The video opens with bursts of smiling employees and showcases the allure of office amenities, such as vending machines, a coffee station and a working copy machine.
Internet Brands CEO Bob Brisco then begins to narrate, “Many of you have come back to the office, and we’ve noticed.” While he says it has made a big difference, the chief executive isn’t pleased with the employee in-office attendance rate just yet. “Unfortunately, too big of a group hasn’t returned,” he said, queuing to videos of empty desk chairs and conference rooms.
“We’re getting more serious about getting everyone back into the office for the simple reason that we’re better when we’re together. We move faster and we get better results,” Brisco added.
He then hands the video off to his executives, who one-by-one highlight the benefits of in-office work, like “collaboration” and “organic breakthrough moments of creativity.”
The company shares that it has big goals for 2024. “We need you ready and present, and we need it now,” urged Blake DeSimone, chief financial officer at WebMD.
“We’re better when we’re together and we need to be our best to crush our competition,” said Steve Peraino, senior vice president of consumer services at WebMD. The video drives home Peraino’s point by showing the word “competition” being erased on a whiteboard and a can of Dr Pepper literally being crushed.
The company informs its employees that in-office attendance will be enforced and tracked.
In his final message, Brisco doesn’t mince his words, “We aren’t asking or negotiating at this point. We’re informing how we need to work together going forward.”
After the CEO’s closer, the video shifts to someone trying to join a GoogleGOOG Meets video call, but they are met with the following message: “Ready to join? No one else is here. Everyone is in person now!” It then ends with people dancing to the song “Iko Iko,” showing a translation of the lyrics: “‘We mean business’ or ‘Don’t mess with us.’”
Where The Company Went Wrong
Firms are using various strategies to encourage employees to return to the office, including implementing return-to-office policies, abandoning the hybrid work model and requiring employees to be in-office for a certain number of days per week.
Some companies have been accused of using extreme measures, such as tracking attendance or threatening to terminate workers who do not comply with RTO mandates.
Before implementing and enforcing a new disruptive company policy, the management team should always make the effort to reach out to its workforce to gain a vibe check and ask for feedback. By doing this, leadership can assess employee needs and work to ensure they are being heard and met.
If a company wants people to return to the office, the executive team, in conjunction with human resources, needs to give a valid reason as to why. It is not enough to offer vague platitudes and use buzzwords like “collaboration,” especially when employees successfully worked from home during the pandemic. There should be a litany of thoughtful and insightful reasons why returning to the office would offer greater benefits compared to working remotely that include data.
Companies should make people want to come to the office by offering affinity groups, social interactions among employees at all levels and other special events, such as prominent guest speakers, yoga classes and other fun and interactive meetups, in which people want to attend.
Instead, Brisco admonished employees to return to the office, with clips of sterile, nondescript office settings. The video comes across as somewhat threatening, intimating that a worker could be penalized or perhaps lose their job if they don’t meet in-office attendance requirements.
There was a lack of empathy for workers who require special accommodations. Child care is extremely expensive and commuting back and forth to an office eats up significant amounts of time, money and energy. It can take a toll on employees’ mental health and well-being, as it claws back on the flexibility and work-life balance that workers have grown accustomed to. None of these issues were addressed in the video. However, the company did edit the video to include the following message in the beginning: “Wow, this video has gotten a lot of attention! For the ‘record’ our return to office policy is a hybrid one. We’ve been rolling out these hybrid policies for over a year.”
In a statement to Business Insider, the company doubled down on the video’s messaging, “Our executive team feels strongly that both our company and our employees are more successful when they can collaborate in person. The tone of the video was an intentional decision to keep the topic light and somewhat ironic, in the context of knowing very well that the Return To Office issue can be emotionally charged. Nonetheless, we take our individual and collective productivity seriously and firmly believe the best way to learn and grow is to be together.”
Source: Forbes
