Parents work at home with their two children due to the coronavirus outbreak in Paris in 2020.
Xavier Laine | Getty Images News | Getty Images
People have changed their minds about working from home since the coronavirus caused offices to close last year, Cisco CEO Chuck Robbins said during a results conference call with analysts on Tuesday. At first, people liked their new and distributed arrangements, but now some people want to get back to work, he said.
Cisco, whose network switches, phones and wi-fi access points are installed on corporate websites, is among the companies that can benefit from a broad return to the office. The state of the pandemic continues to change, and Robbins’ words communicate a lack of certainty about the consequences and how it will affect business.
“I think we have reached a stage where people really struggle mentally, people are – they are not enjoying it,” said Robbins.
Just as Robbins speaks regularly to customers, he also communicates with Cisco employees themselves. On the call, he brought in information he had recently received to demonstrate his point of view.
“One of our employees said to me the other day, ‘I don’t care about the option of working from home. I don’t like being forced to work from home,'” he said.
Cisco employees face other pressures. In August, after reporting a three-quarter drop in revenue caused by business challenges, Cisco, once the most valuable company in the world, announced a cost reduction program that included offering voluntary early retirements. Cisco employees can work from home until June 30, a spokesman said.
Robbins has his own idea of the role of the office in addition to Cisco.
“I really believe it will be a hybrid where people will work from home and everyone will kind of land here, where they will work from home three days a week and work from the office two days a week and vice versa,” he said. “The question is what accommodations this brings to customers based on employees’ concerns about space issues, concerns about future pandemics or other concerns. This is what we just don’t know yet.”
Technology companies are increasingly promising flexibility around remote work when the pandemic is over. On Tuesday, Salesforce announced that most of its employees would work on a “flexible” schedule, with one to three days in the office each week, while Twitter and Dropbox told employees that they can work from home permanently.
Applications are open for 2021 CNBC Disruptor 50, a list of private start-ups that use innovative technology to become the next generation of large public companies. Submit until Friday, February 12th, at 3pm EST.
TO SEE: Cisco CEO defends revised agreement with Acacia, calls new assessment ‘reasonable’