Ford Motor Co. is enabling remote work arrangements. The company recently announced that over 30,000 of its employees worldwide would be able to work from home permanently.
Many companies have been announcing during the last months their new flexibility policies and how remote work is shifting their business structure. However, most of those companies are from the IT sector. On March 17th, Ford became the first automobile company moving towards a remote work model.
What is Ford’s New Remote Work Policy About?
Ford is one of the leading car manufacturers in the world. Even though 100,000 of its 186,000 employees are mostly factory workers, when the pandemic hit and quarantine was enforced, thousands of Ford’s employees continue performing their duties while being at home.
Now that vaccines are spreading across the world and offices are slowly opening their doors, Ford is letting employees choose whether if they want or not to return to the office.
In companies such as Salesforce, Target, JPMorgan, working remotely is their current priority. However, for the car industry, Ford’s decision was bold. Other companies such as Toyota and General Motors are calling everyone back to the office.
Ford’s new remote work policy is exclusively for office workers, and it’s 100% optional, meaning that those who want to go back to the office can do so. Those who rather work remotely can also continue with that modality.
Ford’s Chief People and Employee Experiences Officer Kiersten Robinson told CNBC:
The nature of the work we do really is going to be a guiding element. If there’s one thing we’ve learned over the last 12 months, it’s that a lot of our assumptions around work and what employees need has shifted.Kiersten Robinson
One of the main reasons Ford chooses remote work over the traditional on-site structure is that its employees perform better and are more productive in a virtual setup. According to a survey Ford conducted during June 2020, 95% of employees felt more productive while working from home and wanted a hybrid form of working in the future.
