- Marc Benioff said “every person’s different” when it comes to choosing to work from home or in person
- The Salesforce cofounder was interviewed by GQ and said “people need to focus on being happy.”
- This is despite mandating Salesforce employees to come to the office three or more days a week.
Salesforce billionaire CEO Marc Benioff seems to have somewhat of a muddled stance on hybrid working.
59-year-old Benioff, who mandated his workers back to the office earlier this year, discussed the balance of in-person and remote working in a recent interview with GQ,
“People need to focus on being happy,” he said. “When I talk to my friends, and they’re going through some kind of existential crisis, I’ll say to them, ‘Just tell me what are five things that are making you super unhappy right now?’ And they’ll give me those five things.
“For some of them, they need to rebalance home and work. Some need to spend more time in the office. Some need to spend more time at home. Every person’s different, but I think to optimize the workforce, you have to realize it’s not a one-size-fits-all agenda,” he added.
But Benioff doesn’t seem to apply this mantra to his own workforce.
Leaked company messages from earlier this year, showed that non-remote employees are now expected to be in the office three days a week, while non-remote employees in customer-facing roles have to be in the office four days a week. Engineers only have to come in 10 days per quarter. This was a toned-down version of the policy too, per Business Insider’s previous reporting, after getting employee feedback.
The interview with GQ isn’t the first time Benioff has given off a contradicting message. In September, he said at Salesforce’s annual Dreamforce conference: “I’m a remote worker. I’ve always been a remote worker my whole life.”
He added: “I don’t work well in an office. It just doesn’t work with my personality.”
But he doesn’t feel the same about his employees.
“They need to mix in-person and remote together,” he said at the conference. “Our engineers are extremely productive at home. We have lots of people who are extremely productive at home. But there also has to be salespeople who are productive in the office.”
Salesforce joins a number of tech companies that have walked back on their remote working policies in recent months. Both Google and Meta have said workers have to come into the office three days a week as well.
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