Introduction
Before the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, remote or hybrid work was unheard of, as almost all employees had to report to their respective offices to work. However, the COVID-19 issue has brought a lot of relevance to the new concept where working from home has become the norm. In addition, other companies have had to combine working from home and office simultaneously in what has been referred to as a hybrid system. One of the most prominent companies grappling with this challenge of working from home is the US-based electric vehicle manufacturer Tesla. This case study report examines and provides an overview of the individual and organizational challenges Tesla may face and need to address. In addition, it identifies and discusses the primary human resources management roles captured and how HRM can help resolve the people and organizational-related challenges identified in Tesla. In the world of hybrid work in contemporary society, there is a need to address what success would be like for Tesla in the coming years and how HRM can drive solutions that support the company’s successful future.
Revitalizing Culture in the World of Hybrid Work
Many leaders are concerned that hybrid and remote work are undermining the cultures of their organizations. Such concerns and reservations are not misplaced. Some research studies by prominent global firms such as Gartner have found that many hybrid and remote workers feel disconnected from their companies’ cultures. However, other studies have also demonstrated that forcing workers to work from their offices cannot be the solution to the issue at hand. It is risky because employees have become used to working from home or having a hybrid system to alternate between their residences and offices. For example, Elon Musk, the CEO and founder of Tesla, has experienced the dangers of forcing employees to work from their offices. Therefore, this is an issue that CEOs and company directors need to tread with caution to avoid employee resistance. Thus, companies must take another approach to enhance workplace efficiency instead of forcing employees to resume working from their offices. Although there is a need to strengthen organizational culture in the world of hybrid work, companies like Tesla need to approach the issue with caution to avoid the challenges it may face.
Internal Organizational Analysis: Organizational Challenges
Tesla’s return to office policy will face many challenges, particularly opposition from its employees who feel that the CEO’s decision on compulsory return to the office is not viable. In this case, Tesla will have to work hard to implement this directive, which may also demotivate or erode employees’ morale indicated by their reactions online, as in Figure 1 below. Tesla may also need more resources or room to support such an initiative to bring all its workers back to the office (Zakharchenko, 2022). Surveying employees’ attendance and receiving weekly briefings on employees’ absenteeism may only help a little. In this case, such an initiative may only help to deteriorate the relationship between the company’s top management and its employees (Kar et al., 2022). Some employees may need help to relocate from their current residences to meet the needs of the return-to-office.
Most employees had already been identified as remote workers, and rescinding such a decision may only complicate matters. The return to office policy will only contribute to declining morale, particularly among workers who had been allowed to work from home even before the pandemic’s start (Banet, 2021). In general, Tesla had small roles even before the COVID-19 pandemic started and would need much convincing for such staff.
Threatening employees with sackings if they do not heed the call to work from their offices will demoralize and demotivate them and pose individual and organizational challenges. In this case, employees may feel that they lack job security which might force them to seek other employment opportunities (Stein & Scholz, 2019). When this happens, there will be reduced productivity from the workers, which will lead to a considerable reduction in output. It is relevant to note that job insecurity hurts employers and employees. Therefore, not only will the workers lose from reduced morale, but also Tesla may be forced to scale down its operations because of having a demotivated workforce.
The threats by the CEO will bring adverse effects and affect their well-being because many employees will fear losing their jobs. Employees who feel at risk of losing their jobs tend to go slow in their work, affecting the company’s performance (Akakpo et al., 2018). Although research has demonstrated that workplace fears motivate workers who fear being shown the door, job insecurity also leads to high employee turnover. Therefore, Tesla is at risk of losing its employees if it continues to enforce a work-from-office policy.
Individual Challenges
Elon Musk is one individual who can make employees believe in his vision and mission of transforming the company. During the COVID-19 pandemic, he sometimes worked with ordinary workers so that they could appreciate the vision and mission of the firm (Lewin & Teece, 2019). In this case, he did not mind being in the factory when other CEOs were confined at home because of global work-from-home directives. However, Musk has always envisioned making Tesla a more competitive, productive, and innovative global firm. Tesla identifies this attribute through the hiring and selection process of the company, in which they recruit talented people who share the company’s mission, vision, and passion for changing the world (Nicholas & Hull, 2022). This kind of HR strategy is derived from generating the behaviors of specific employees.
The extra burden of job insecurity is often detrimental to the employees rather than beneficial. In this case, such a burden for the workers often cancels out the perceived benefits of threatening employees. Therefore, Tesla will have insecure job workers who will not concentrate on delivering on their respective mandates, as shown in Figure 2 below (Engelsberger et al., 2021). Although such employees may be motivated to perform well to avoid being sacked, they may also become stressed, frustrated, exhausted, and have resentment because of taking working from office roles.
In addition, such employees may also start looking for other job opportunities at the expense of their current employer. Therefore, the workers may need help to perform well, which could harm the company’s overall performance. Thus, Tesla’s workers may be more worried about their jobs, making them less effective and efficient. Such employees are also likely to be distracted and anxious because they do not know what the future will be with such threats from the top management (Andrews et al., 2022). Threats of layoffs have been a primary contributor to anxiety in many work environments, and Tesla will be no exception.
HRM Strategy Evaluation and Recommendations
Primary HRM Role
The HRM can make some strategic decisions regarding leadership at the company and reassure the staff that the firm will cater to their welfare. The primary HRM roles for Tesla’s case include employee performance management, managerial relations, employee communication and engagement, and job design. Elon Musk, the CEO, wants employees to work from their offices because he thinks they will perform better than working from home. Tesla’s CEO’s decision to have a compulsory return to office is all meant to promote hard work and commitment to the duties of respective employees (Boiral et al., 2021). There is a widely held view that working from offices promotes more productivity.
However, that could not be true as having a hybrid working mechanism promotes balancing the work requirements with individual flexibility, which may make the workers more productive. Therefore, such employees are more likely to stay with their organizations than those who work from offices. Tesla’s managerial relations with its employees could be better because top management has dictatorial tendencies (Shiddiq, 2020). When a CEO gives such unilateral directives without the needed consultations among other employees or managers of the company, it does not augur well for the welfare of the workers.
Tesla has a challenge of poor management style that does not suit employees in the 21st century. In this case, Musk has dictatorial tendencies that do not augur well with the workers in the company (Froidevaux et al., 2019). He utilizes a highly authoritative decision-making process, which is why there is no room for consultation. In addition, his word seems final and cannot be challenged by anyone because they fear reprisals. Such dictatorial tendencies only help to frustrate the employees and make them not have the passion for working (Center, 2021). In addition, such employees can only positively contribute to the company’s objectives if they are constantly worried that the firm can let them go at any time. Henceforth, the HRM must ensure that it comes up with a strategy that advises the employees that all is well at the company and that no one will lose their job (Maradin et al., 2022). It should be the HRM policy to ensure that the CEO understands that it is in the company’s best interest to treat employees fairly so that they can offer more contributions.
How HRM Can Help To Resolve The People And Organisational-Related Challenges
HRM can help to resolve the people and organizational-related challenges identified in Tesla, such as poor communication and job insecurity. In this case, HRM can ensure that individual employees are part of a supportive team that promotes growth and development where they are reassured that their jobs are safe. Therefore, the HRM strategy can focus on morale, motivation, stability, team encouragement, career enrichment, and feelings to enhance productivity (Huang, 2020). The benefits of HRM management theory arise from employee recognition, employee consideration, employee productivity, and relationship building between managers and their respective employees. Tesla has also demonstrated unpredictable workplace conduct, particularly concerning the behavior of its CEO. In this case, the HRM can help to convince the CEO that not all workers can be productive in an office environment. Some employees become very productive when they work remotely (Gayathri & Kumari, 2019). HRM will benefit the firm because it will encourage creativity in workers who can respond to environmental changes quickly and efficiently, providing flexibility to the company.
Something that seems to lack in the management of Tesla is employee engagement which seems to be a primary drawback to the welfare of workers. For example, there have yet to be consultations on whether or not to rescind the earlier decision that required employees to work from home. In this case, the CEO made a unilateral decision without consulting the management team that would have ratified the issue. In such a scenario, employee engagement would have ensured that the workers have a role to play in creating an organization with a resilient working environment (Dirani et al., 2020). In addition, HRM promotes employee engagement that ensures that the workforce is committed to its respective roles and switched on at work.
The role would also promote employees who would be career-contented because they would be satisfied with what they are doing. For example, advising the CEO for the staff to work from home or to have a hybrid system would be beneficial in instilling hard work because such employees will have the right passion for performing their duties (Nicholas & Hull, 2022). If workers are given the flexibility of working from home, they may become more innovative and develop the right leadership qualities.
Future Success for TESLA
In the world of hybrid work in contemporary society, Tesla may become very successful if it embraces the concept of working from home. In two to five years, the company could become more successful if it supports the work-from-home initiative (Nicholas & Hull, 2022). Therefore, the CEO was wrong in his directive of working from office policy because the present world has changed considerably, and work flexibility is required for the employees to be more productive. As one of the most successful companies in the 21st century, Tesla could become the pioneer of the work-from-home framework, and it could be perfect by the third year (Fine et al., 2022). The days when employees would work from offices full-time are long gone, and it is only prudent to embrace the hybrid work culture.
The company could reduce its need for office spaces and create a successful platform for hybrid work management, automating many tasks to be performed by software or even artificial intelligence. Its success story could be realized in the next two to five years by simply becoming the first major corporation to make it practical. However, if the situation changes and the company embraces a hybrid working model, the company could become very successful as employees could have the right morale and motivation. In this case, it could discourage employee turnover, affecting companies in the 21st century.
Tesla should make it a habit of encouraging its employees to work from home. There is a need to make such an effort because it will discourage resignations associated with employees who feel dissatisfied with working in areas that are not conducive. In contemporary society, some companies face a labor shortage, particularly in the skills that they require for the business (Purcell et al., 2021). Tesla is in this category, where it needs professionals in artificial intelligence and technology-related courses. Sometimes, it takes work to find professionals with the right experiences and competence that are fit to work for technology companies.
Henceforth, the company could retain most of its employees if it supports such a working culture. In addition, it may also attract more talent because of its flexible working environment that supports the present-day worker (Shahzad et al., 2021). There is a need for Tesla to ensure that its ways of working are conducive and attractive to the ways the modern employee currently wants to work and live. This will also help retain talent that already exists in the firm, as there are no people who want to leave a particular job per se, and it is a bad culture they want to abandon.
HRM: Driving Solutions
HRM can help drive solutions that support Tesla’s successful future by helping have a more dynamic work model and talent, and it has an array of mechanisms of influence, as shown in Figure 3 below. HRM leaders can assist in this case by focusing on scalability, agility, and identity. The COVID-19 pandemic provided new opportunities for companies to operate in the future (Chakraborty & Ganguly, 2019). In this case, Tesla can take advantage of the situation and embrace a work-from-home model that seems to be the initiative for the future.
Therefore, it is the prerogative of HRM to ensure that all the workers, including the CEO, understand the benefits of a work-from-home model. COVID-19 provided an opportunity to present societies operate and how people should work and interact, particularly in their places of work (Tomar et al., 2020). In this case, there has been a shift to remote work that a dynamic reallocation of resources has also supported. In addition, HRM can help Tesla accelerate its automation and digitalization process to meet the organizational and individual needs requirements. A work-from-home policy requires workers to be supported through information technology so that they can be able to operate from remote areas. Henceforth, the HRM must champion allocating relevant resources supporting such an initiative.
Recommendations
One of the recommendations for Tesla to adopt is to embrace an organizational culture of working from home or having a hybrid policy. Strengthening this culture in a world of hybrid work will support the initiatives to promote the welfare of employees. In contemporary society, many companies have come to embrace a work-from-home policy as the way to go even after the COVID-19 cases subsided. A work-from-home policy is one initiative that promotes morale and motivation in the workplace (Matousek, 2020). Therefore, the CEO needs to refrain from forcing employees to physically report to their respective offices as long as he can see the results and employees are accountable and transparent with their work.
Encouraging employees to work from home will reduce cases of resignations, and most workers hate an office culture. Thus, flexibility is the way for Tesla, and the employees should have the leeway to become productive in whatever environment they deem fit (Rauch & Ansari, 2022). There should not be the worry that hybrid and remote work will undermine its organizational culture. People can work from home and still feel connected to their places of work and have a robust organizational culture.
The other recommendation should be to ensure that the company’s organizational culture is aligned and has a connectedness to the company. Evaluating the culture based on the two components is essential in this case. For example, alignment will ensure that the workers know the corporate culture and that what they receive would be right for them and the firm. In addition, promoting a culture of connectedness will help the employees identify with and be concerned regarding the culture (Matousek, 2020). Although office work promotes connectedness, Tesla must ensure all the employees who work from home embrace connectedness. More connected employees perform at a higher level than other workers. Instead of viewing remote work as a disruption, there is a need for Tesla to promote the initiative as it provides the best corporate cultural experience in the 21st century (Corrado, 2022). Therefore, there is a need for Tesla as a company to ensure its leaders, including Musk, view it as an opportunity to build a culture differently. Some employees become more productive when they are free to work from anywhere instead of just being confined to the office.
Conclusion
In conclusion, Tesla is one of the most prominent companies manufacturing electric vehicles and power batteries. However, the company needs help with its employees in its organizational culture, particularly regarding working from office policy. In addition, the firm has issues dictating how its employees will work, providing individual and organizational challenges. In this case, there needs to be more consultation and effective communication in the company, which needs to be improved when the CEO demonstrates dictatorial tendencies. The CEO communicated rescinding the work-from-home directive through email instead of having a formal meeting where the issues could have been dealt with exhaustively with employee contributions. Threatening the employees with sackings needs to augur better with the workers who feel demoralized and demotivated. Thus, it will affect the individuals and Tesla as a company. The employees also feel they have an extra burden of job insecurity because of the threats of top management, which can make them unproductive and stressed. The HRM must ensure a better approach to addressing workers’ concerns and can advise the CEO appropriately.
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