Many of the same corporations that embraced remote work during the pandemic have been gradually calling people back to the office. Robinhood Markets (NASDAQ:HOOD) is the latest company to follow this trend, as CEO Vlad Tenev pulls back from a remote-first environment.
"Everyone said it was a one-way door, but it turns out it's a two-way door," Tenev said in a "Cheeky Pint" podcast episode. "You can reverse pretty much anything."
As a part of Robinhood's updated RTO mandate, executives must now go into the office five days per week. Managers and individual contributors must report to the office four and three days per week, respectively.
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Return To Office As A Downsizing Tool
Tenev's return-to-office mandate sparked a tidal wave of conversation on Reddit, with many people expressing their dissatisfaction that another big tech company was bringing people back into the office. One commenter mentioned that return-to-office mandates can be a way to mask layoffs.
"It’s bad press to lay off people. RTO is the new downsizing tool. It’s just a way to purge the rolls while AI takes the jobs," the commenter said.
The 2024 ZipRecruiter Annual Employer Survey backs up this argument. One of its conclusions was that companies that imposed RTO mandates reported annual turnover rates roughly 13% higher than companies that support remote work.
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Remote-First Has Worked For Robinhood
Tenev told "Cheeky Pint" host John Collison that he "pretty much immediately" regretted turning Robinhood into a remote-first company. Although a RTO mandate may make sense for a sinking ship, Robinhood stock has soared into another stratosphere.
Robinhood's shares have almost tripled year-to-date, and it's not a meme bubble that's taking Robinhood stock to new highs. The fintech firm delivered 45% year-over-year revenue growth in Q2, while net income more than doubled year-over-year.
"We delivered strong business results in Q2 driven by relentless product velocity, and we launched tokenization— which I believe is the biggest innovation our industry has seen in the past decade," Tenev said in a statement accompanying Q2 results.
Robinhood's success as a company and its soaring stock price make it hard to say that the company's remote-first environment wasn't working.
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Debates Emerge Over Robinhood's RTO Approach For Different Roles
Many tech enthusiasts debated Robinhood's decision to have stricter RTO requirements based on an employee's role. Executives have to return to the office each weekday, while managers and individual contributors don't have to go to work as often.
"If you're an individual contributor and you're doing work, it's very nice to know that your manager is going through more pain than you," Tenev said in a Cheeky Pint interview.
Some people cheered on the move, rationalizing that people who get paid more should go to the office more.
"So those who shoulder more responsibility are coming in more. What’s actually wrong here? This is the first sensible RTO policy I’ve ever seen. I’ve been a staunch critic of RTO in 99% of the cases," one Redditor said.
However, another tech enthusiast said on Reddit that Robinhood's RTO mandate only sounds reasonable on the surface.
"It's reasonable in a false generosity/anchoring sort of way. Like when a store increases the cost of something just prior to a 50% sale to make it look like a good deal," the commenter said.
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