Sir Jim Ratcliffe, the billionaire co-owner of Manchester United. Getty/Bertrand Guay
Sir Jim Ratcliffe, co-owner of Manchester United, bans remote work for the club’s employees.
Previously, employees were allowed to work from home on Fridays. Now it’s different.
With its strict office policy, the association is in line with many large companies such as Apple, Dell and Meta.
This is a machine translation of an article from our US colleagues at Business Insider. It was automatically translated and checked by a real editor.
Billionaire Manchester United co-owner Sir Jim Ratcliffe has told his employees he is banning working from home after key metrics were missed at one of his companies. In an all-staff video call last week, Ratcliffe told employees they would either have to come into the office or “find other employment,” reported „The Guardian“.
Ratcliffe, the 103rd richest person in the world, bought a 27.7 percent stake in the football club in February and his company Ineos took over management of football operations. The billionaire is making a strong case by shrugging off the company’s post-COVID flexible work policy to boost productivity.
According to The Guardian, the policy change was largely driven by a decline in email traffic. Ratcliffe told Manchester United staff that email traffic fell by 20 percent after one of his companies trialled Friday working.
Staff are also under fire after Ratcliffe denounced disorder at the club’s premises last week. The billionaire told staff that the state of the club’s IT department was a “disgrace” and other areas of the training ground were not much better, reported “The Athletic„.
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However, the strict policy change poses some challenges. Loud „The Athletic“ The company’s buildings in Manchester and London do not have enough space to accommodate all employees who work full-time in the office.
Many other companies have taken the same hard line on returning employees to the office. Dell issued a similar ultimatum to its employees earlier this year: return to the office or you won’t be promoted. Other companies that have imposed strict return-to-office regulations include Apple, Meta and Google.
But not everyone agrees that office policies are the best way to increase productivity. Globant, a software company with 30,000 employees, is allowing all of its employees to work fully remotely.
Some studies have questioned the effectiveness of strict office policies. A recent study of S&P 500 companies by researchers at the Katz Graduate School of Business found that companies with strict rules were not more profitable and that their employees were not necessarily more productive.
Read the original article in English here.