I'll be the odd man out and say he's right. Communication is hard enough to do effectively, let alone over remote work.
The only formula that seems to work: relationships were developed in person then moved to remote. But unfortunately this makes it impossible to onboard anyone. Furthermore getting this to work at scale still seems to be a challenge.
His presentation style... definitely cold and brusk. Wouldn't be my approach
I was onboarded with 3 other colleagues, while the company was fully remote. I'm fully integrated into the work and company culture. I love my colleagues and get along great with them.
I don't undertand this "you can't build relationships over Teams" sentiment. Have people forgot about online gaming? There are millions -- I'd wager a billion -- close friendships that started (and maybe stayed) fully online. The bar for colleague-level acquaintances is much lower.
Slight counterpoint: Productivity is really high, but having basically zero relationships with my co-workers is isolating, and I work best when I have a commute and a dedicated working space.
I worked remotely for over six years now so my 2pence:
>I work best when I have a commute and a dedicated working space.
I sometimes have this urge too, thankfully renting out an office space is fairly cheap and can be done quite flexibly for when you need, and most importantly -- WHERE you need it.
Otherwise having a dedicated home office is great, but I understand that it might not be so if your family/living situation is different.
>having basically zero relationships with my co-workers is isolating
It doesn't have to be this way, you absolutely can make long lasting and very meaningful bonds without ever seeing a person.
And productivity wise, it is all about processes and culture, both office and remote can work wonderfully or be a disaster.
I personally prefer working in person right now, and go in even though my organization does not require it. But Musk is wrong. There is nothing inherently worse about working remotely. If your people are less effective remotely it could be due to a lot of reasons (including morale), and they are all fixable.
Color me odd also. My team of software engineers was very productive working remote for the first year or so of the pandemic. But, we already knew what our projects were and the designs were in place, so in person collaboration wasn't so critical.
Things started to slow down as we took on new projects remotely. We got back up to speed when we started coming into the office a couple days a week. The collaboration was better and the random interactions with other teams throughout the building seemed to help get us back on track.
We are now 3 days a week in the office and that is working very well for us. I don't think remote work is the future, I'd lean toward hybrid work environments being the future.
The only formula that seems to work: relationships were developed in person then moved to remote. But unfortunately this makes it impossible to onboard anyone. Furthermore getting this to work at scale still seems to be a challenge.
His presentation style... definitely cold and brusk. Wouldn't be my approach