Tech's Surprising Remote Work U-Turn

Tech companies are the most well positioned to keep working from home – and have even created the tools to do so. Yet they, too, are urging workers back to desks. Plus, is it time to take influencing seriously as a career?

Why companies including Zoom and Grindr are returning to office

In August, Grindr gave its workers a return-to-office ultimatum: either agree to work twice a week in person from October, or lose their jobs. The policy meant employees hired remotely would need to relocate to Los Angeles, where the social networking and online dating app is headquartered, or one of its other US 'hub' cities, such as New York or Chicago.?

Many workers rejected the mandate. According to the Grindr union,?82 of the company's 178 employees have been let go?for refusing to comply (Grindr didn't respond to multiple BBC requests for comment).

As bosses call back workers, many companies in tech sector have been actively supportive and permissive of flexible work. Grindr's decision to implement such a strict return-to-office protocol – and willingness to lose nearly half of its staff – has come as a shock to many people. After all, compared to highly strict, corporate businesses that have made staunch in-office rules, startups and digital-first companies are better positioned to work remotely, and generally pride themselves on their adaptability.?

Yet Grindr isn't the only tech company that's drawn a line through fully remote working patterns. For example, Elon Musk effectively ended working from home for employees at Twitter (now X) in November 2022 after mandating they?work in person at least 40 hours a week. In recent months, Big Tech companies, including Amazon, have also stiffened their?hybrid-working mandates .

Among the highest-profile – and in many ways, surprising – return-to-office tech announcements was at Zoom . In August, the video-conferencing platform – largely synonymous with remote work – announced that workers living within 50mi (80.5km) of an office now must work in person at least twice a week.?

Despite their reputations of agility and progressiveness, many tech companies are increasingly sending an unexpected message: in-person work is too important to lose, no matter the public reception or the preferences of their employees.???

→Read more from Alex Christian

Influencing can be a high-earning career. Why don't we take it seriously?

Most days, Chloe Homan's work schedule is jam-packed. The 32-year-old from Wisconsin, US, usually starts her week with planning and touching base with her team, while Tuesdays are back-to-back with meetings. Wednesday and Thursday are reserved for focused work. With Friday spent wrapping up loose ends before the weekend, Homan says she can sometimes rack up 80 to 90 hours of work each week.?

Yet in spite of her long hours and intense work schedule, plenty of people still don't see her line of work as a "real job". Homan is a professional influencer , who has been on the receiving end of plenty of eye-rolling about her career.?

"I remember telling friends and family what I was going to do, and nobody even knew what it meant," she says, reflecting on the start of her content-creating journey, around five years ago. "People thought you'd just take a picture and post it, and there wasn't any real money to be made. I remember my mom being worried about me putting my whole life online."

But now, things are changing. Homan was able to go full time as an influencer in 2019 after finding a niche providing curly hair tips and tutorials to her followers. She now runs her social media platforms as a business with a staff of six, and has also launched a hair accessory line. And it isn't just her ability to make a living as a content creator that she's seen change.

"Now I have friends who are teachers who will tell me that kids say that they want to be TikTokers or YouTubers when they grow up," she says. "You can create a very good living in this industry."

For years, many people have seen influencing as something of a self-indulgent pursuit for mostly young women, with content creators being branded as vapid, even con-artists. But the art – and business – of influencing is changing.

Now, content creation can be a lucrative career, and companies rely on people with big social media followings to boost their products and services. Many influencers have proved themselves to be savvy entrepreneurs with a knack for building a brand.

→Read more from Katie Bishop

More from BBC:

• US automotive CEOs make lots more than their global counterparts. Why?
• Shinkflation is hurting our wallets. The problem? It's not going away , even if the economy recovers.

Thanks for reading. See you next week.

— Meredith Turits, Editor, BBC Worklife