FORD has made a significant change to its office policy in its latest bid to boost employee and company performance.
The iconic automaker has called for the majority of its workforce to be in the office for four days a week.
This new office policy will come into effect from September 1, and will impact the majority of its global salaried workforce.
A Ford spokesperson told Reuters: “We believe working together in person on a day-to-day basis will accelerate Ford’s transformation into a higher growth, higher margin, less cyclical and more dynamic company.”
The spokesperson also explained that many of the company’s employees have already been coming into the office for three or more days a week for some time now.
Ford notified employees of this new policy yesterday.
In the wake of the coronavirus pandemic, hybrid working has become a popular debate among businesses all over the world.
Some companies, such as JPMorgan and Amazon, have reportedly mandated that their staff return to five days a week.
Ford’s crosstown rival, General Motors (GM), faced backlash for calling workers back into the office for three days a week in 2022, which saw them hold off from implementing the policy until 2023.
The Detroit automakers are implementing more strenuous bonus and attendance policies in a bid to compete with electric vehicle giants like Tesla.
Ford also ran into trouble earlier this year, as it struggled to source essential materials needed for its electric vehicles, which led to a production shutdown of one of its factories.
The manufacturers were in desperate need of rare-earth magnets, which according to the Wall Street Journal, are notoriously difficult to find due to China’s dominance in the global supply of the material.
The production shut down highlights the supply-chain difficulties Ford has been facing in recent times – only worsened by China’s restrictions on exporting rare-earth materials.
In February, they slashed stock bonuses for many of its middle managers, in what the company said was a move to incentivise improved performance.
last year, GM also changed its employee performance evaluation ranking to a system that put more pressure on the company’s low performers to either improve or leave.
Ford recently called out GM and its hometown competitors to establish itself as the most American auto company in the company, in June this year.
During the NBA finals on Monday, June 16, the company released an ad which riffed off of Kendrick Lamar’s hit track “Not Like Us” while referencing how it declined a taxpayer bailout during the 2008 financial crisis.
The ad said: “If they were like us, they would have said no to the taxpayer bailout and added thousands of American jobs.”
Ford said in a statement that it is the only manufacturer among the “Big Three” to increase hourly jobs in the US since the recession.
The ad came after Ford’s CEO Jim Farely opened up about the day-to-day struggle that comes with car production.
Farely admitted that Trump’s trade war with China has had devastating effects on the iconic American car brand.
Source : https://www.the-sun.com/motors/14565146/ford-policy-change-global-shift-hybrid-working/
