Zoom has asked employees to return to the office

Zoom Video Communications, commonly known as Zoom, has asked its employers to return to the office.

The video conferencing and online collaboration platform was at its peak during the Covid-19 pandemic, as virtual meetings became essential for many organizations.

Many companies have returned to the office for at least a few days, however Zoom has been lagging behind - no, pun intended.

A Zoom representative has now revealed that staff at the San Jose, California-based company who live within 50 miles of a Zoom office are now expected to be in two days a week, as per Business Insider.

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“We believe that a structured hybrid approach – meaning employees that live near an office need to be on-site two days a week to interact with their teams – is most effective for Zoom,” the representative said, according to the outlet.

"As a company, we are in a better position to use our own technologies, continue to innovate, and support our global customers."

Sorry folks, the days of working from bed and wearing sweatpants are officially over - at least for part of the week.

During the pandemic, Zoom’s sales increased around six-fold; however, the following year, revenue slowed as many stopped working remotely.

Business Insider reported that the company has lost around $100 billion in market value since 2021.

"We'll continue to leverage the entire Zoom platform to keep our employees and dispersed teams connected and working efficiently," the spokesperson added.

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While working from home definitely has its benefits - lunchtime showers, face masks and rocking a good ol’ Udie from behind your screen - research has found it's less productive than working in the office.

A study from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the University of California, Los Angeles, found that working from home decreases productivity by about 18 per cent less than working in the office.

“There's obviously going to be a big difference between someone who already understands the work well and already knows the culture of the firm and how things are done, and now you're saying, ‘OK, now you can work from home a few days a week,” said David Atkin, an economics professor at MIT and one of the paper’s co-authors.

“In terms of extrapolating, we do need to think carefully about that.”

However, he noted that the study doesn’t consider hybrid workers.

“A lot of the discussion now is on where we go on this work-from-home spectrum,” he said.

“Do we go all the way to full work-from-home or to the full work-in-the-office? I think we'll end up somewhere in between.”