Roblox CEO David Baszucki said virtual workspaces are not as "engaging, collaborative, and productive as physical spaces," and it "needed to get back to working in person."
If people were hired (say, in 2020) under the condition that they’re allowed to work from home, this might be considered constructive dismissal - that is, forcing an employee to quit in a way that is equivalent to firing them. The employees are then entitled to the normal rules for unemployment, and potentially severance pay, unused vacation cashout, and so on.
I think Musk is facing several lawsuits along those lines, but might be moving to settle because the cost of arbitration would potentially bankrupt the company.
They are actually not able to follow up. They are saying resign.. not get canned. They actually cannot afford severance. Best way to fight back is not comply, not resign.
I blame all the managers who struggle to create remotely engaging virtual meetings, and who count the majority of their team's productivity based on how many hours they can see them sitting at their desk🙄
He's one of the highest paid CEOs in the entire world, fun fact... the 7th highest paid, at USD$232,786,391 in 2021(which is 1600x the average roblox employee's pay)
Unspoken here is the third option: navigate a series of untextured raised rectangular platforms littered with smaller rectangles that will fire you automatically if you touch them, designed by an 8 year old that got bored halfway through the engineering phase and wandered off to play Breakin Story 2.
The good news is that, for only 399 robux a month, you can get VIP membership, which includes a coil that allows you to immediately jump over the entire platform and land into a dated pile of two dimensional meme sprites they meant to clean up.
I was given an ultimatum like this once, to do X or resign, and I chose not to do X and refused to resign, and I worked there for an additional nine months until I found something better. I did have to endure several meetings where they kept saying I "needed" to resign or comply, but they never fired me. Said I would get a bad reference, but since that's extremely risky on the company's part, I still used them as a reference. HR dgaf. They just know they can't say anything negative about a previous employee. The whole thing is absurd posturing.
It's a huge opening to get sued. So you could lose millions, but it'll never make you a cent. So most are advised to just confirm very basic information like how long the employee worked there.
Many companies are doing this. They're OK with the attrition. Acceptable losses as far as they're concerned. I suppose it's their right. I hope those that quit over it find better jobs.
It's a weird tactic though. As a manager in a large organization, I'd be worried about who would leave in that situation. The top performers always have options. A handful might stick around, but the ones that will definitely stick around are the ones with less options and/or the ones too lazy to update their resume.
My own experience in IT with companies which were even just starting to talk about layoffs is that the people who can much more easilly find new jobs - typically the better ones and the ones with hard to find or in more demand expertises - are the ones who leave first, often preemptivelly (though it does depend on their chances to get compensation for being dismissed and how much, so for example in certail legal jurisdictions were compensation depends on years employed there, you might seen the best of the newer employes just take off whilst the ones with many years there hold on for compensation because it's worth it for them).
In fact if you're going to do cuts you better have the list of positions which are going to be cut already planned because in that period of uncertaintly between knowing there will be layoffs and knowing who is going to be kicked out is when those people who can easilly find another job will leave, if only because that removes the uncertainy of if and when they'll stop getting paid, reduces the risk of a gap between jobs and even lets you take your time when searching for a new job and thus get a better one (if you're kicked out whilst still having bills to pay being selective about your new job is sometimes not possible).
Even were such effects only impact a small number of employees, it's never the least useful ones that leave preemptivelly.
In this specific case with an ultimatum of the "do this thing that's going to be worse fo you because I say so, or else" kind, that's just going to give more reason for the ones who can leave more easilly to leave.
That's ok once they realize their mistakes they will hire them back for even more money than they used to make, after offering them their job back for less money than they used to make first.
I see it in my own job. It's a tough situation. I get where companies are coming from and where workers are coming from too. I'm back in the office and it sucks. I can maybe go somewhere else and lose seniority and everything but gain flexibility. It's just another perk now you have to weigh all-in with pay and other compensation. Smart employers will recognize it's something people value now and want to attract top talent with flexible work scenarios.