(CNN) – Martha Stewart jumped right into the contentious controversy of remote and on-location work.
In an interview with Footwear News, the writer, TV presenter and businesswoman slammed the hybrid work culture, saying that “it’s impossible for people to do everything by working three days a week in the office and two days a week.” .
Stewart’s comments come as more executives push to end the work-from-home trend, which plateaued more than three years ago at the start of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Martha Stewart
Stewart compared the state of personal business in the United States to France, a country he described as “not very prosperous”.
“Look at France’s success with their stupidity… You know, I’m going to travel in August, blah blah blah blah. It’s not a very prosperous country. Should the US go off the cliff because people don’t want to go back to work?”
Stewart told the magazine that he is in a “fantastic race” to get the American people back into office.
Stewart isn’t the only high-profile person to strongly advocate personal action. The CEOs of several banks, including Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan Chase, have asked some employees to return to work five days a week in the past two years.
Recently, Tesla CEO Elon Musk has been tougher on the work-from-home trend, calling it “morally wrong.”
The question of whether face-to-face work is necessary boiled over three years ago, when many companies decided to send most white-collar employees home at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. Since then, the office culture has not changed.
Post the covid-19 pandemic, office culture has yet to fully recover. According to Kastle Systems data, average office occupancy this week is still around 48% of pre-pandemic levels.
Many offices have reached halfway with employees, embracing hybrid working models, which means workers can continue to work from home on certain days of the week.
However, telecommuting has its advocates. Some workers told CNN that the ability to work remotely has changed their lives for the better and that they would rather quit their jobs than return to working on site.
“Some people work better from home. I never wake up afraid to work because I’m in the comfort of my own home,” copywriter Ryan Bernstein told CNN last year.
