After all, Elon Musk may not have got it all wrong. Like the Twitter boss, executives at the Montreal Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce (CCMM) are announcing the end of universal teleworking and now expect their employees to return to office full-time.
The decision was communicated to the approximately 105 employees of the Chamber on Thursday morning. Beginning May 1, within a dozen days, the largest group of Montreal businesspeople want their World Trade Center premises to “become their employees’ regular workplaces” as before.
Photo agency QMI, Joël Lemay
“We have to stop being afraid,” CEO of the Board of Trade of Metropolitan Montreal Michel Leblanc told business owners.
“It’s a kind of return to full-time work downtown,” CEO Michel Leblanc summarizes in an interview. Full-time, of course, but with all the flexibility that the experience of working remotely during the pandemic has given us,” he qualifies immediately.
For a little over a year, the Chamber has initiated a process of gradually returning its in-person teams. Today, employees are required to report to the office at least three days a week, two of which are determined by management. Beyond this limit – from the fourth day – employees benefit from being paid by their employer for their monthly public transport card.
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From grumbling at the beginning
“Of course there was some grumbling at first,” he admits. But if some threatened to leave, he argues, others came to us precisely because they could no longer endure the isolation at home. Many of them have understood – especially early in their careers – that choosing to work remotely means taking a lot of learning away from themselves, [ce] which threatens to limit their professional prospects in the long term. »
Photo: AFP
On his first day at the helm of Twitter, Elon Musk ordered everyone on the social network to return to face-to-face operations.
Despite the delay seen in Quebec compared to other major cities in the country, the chamber’s big head says he senses an appetite for some return to pre-pandemic practices among business leaders here. Two weeks ago, the Royal Bank of Canada told its Toronto headquarters that they would now need to be present in the office for up to four days a week to remain competitive.
A call to governments
He also expects the Chamber’s approach to be emulated by several other companies in the coming weeks or months. In doing so, it calls on all levels of government (federal, provincial and local) that are lagging behind, in particular the private sector, to take immediate action to speed up the return of their workers to work.
Photo Adobe Stock
RBC Headquarters in Toronto.
According to Michel Leblanc, even when employees feel – often rightly so – that they are performing a comparable or better job than before, more and more organizations are seeing a real decline in group productivity and competitiveness against competitors in the United States, for example, where remote working is not so common has spread widely.
“I tell companies to stop being afraid. You will not lose your employees. On the contrary, by asking them to come back to the office to make it a regular workplace, you strengthen your organizational culture, your ability to onboard newcomers and also retain your employees. You don’t lose, on the contrary; you secure your successes and take the means to stay in the running. »
► According to the latest real estate data from Colliers, office space availability in the Montreal CBD was 19.8% in the first quarter of 2023.