Kevin O’Leary disagrees with Martha Stewart’s Stance on Remote Work, arguing that the “Best Talent” prefers to remain outside the office.
A few days ago Martha Stewart, renowned as America’s foremost homemaker, recently told Footwear News magazine that a three-day office workweek supplemented by two remote days is insufficient for productivity. She expressed:
“Look at the success of France with their stupid … off for August, blah blah blah. That’s not a very thriving country. Should America go down the drain because people don’t want to go back to work?” My kind of work is very creative, and it is very collaborative, and I cannot really stomach another Zoom here, Zoom there.”
To this declaration, Kevin O’Leary expressed his disagreement, telling Fox News that the reality is that employees no longer want to work in “worn-torn” cities.
“The economy has changed radically. The problem with saying everybody has to work in the office is you won’t be able to hire the best talent. The best talent told us, ‘If I have to come into an office and sit in a cubicle and drive for 45 minutes each day into a war-torn city like San Francisco … I’m not doing it. I don’t want to get shot on my way to work.'”
He also predicted that empty office buildings are never going to fill up again and will have to be converted into condos or climate-controlled storage. For him, walking away from the notion of in-person work is important primarily due to talent.
“Frankly, if you say everybody has to come to the office, you’ll get the third-tier candidates … I want great team members. And if they tell me, ‘I don’t want to work in an office, but I’m number one at what I do.’ I’ll go with number one at what I do,”
