Detroit — Since General Motors Co. started requiring in-office work after the pandemic, most employees have recognized the benefits and want to be there, though there is a small minority who continue to object, CEO Mary Barra told the Detroit Economic Club on Thursday.
In January, GM started requiring its salaried staff within 50 miles of an assigned office location to work in person Tuesday through Thursday. Employees are expected to be in the office on those three days, at minimum. That move came after GM in 2022 broke from a "Work Appropriately" strategy by requiring employees to go back to the office three days of the week.
Barra discussed in detail why the global automaker needed salaried employees back in the office and the benefits of in-office work for employees at the Detroit Economic Club event, noting that "a handful of weeks" into the COVID-19 pandemic in spring 2020, GM already had employees back at work building and designing vehicles.
"You can't design a vehicle over Zoom, and so we asked everybody to be back," Barra said. "Whether it's casual mentoring, casual learning or just networking, you understand what different people do, you run into them in the cafeteria and you have a quick lunch with them. Those are all important parts of development."
Some employees were not happy about GM breaking from the "Work Appropriately" model, which was introduced in April 2021 and described as a new mindset where employees had the choice to work were they did their best work. GM continued to hire during the pandemic, so it had some employees who had never been in the office.
"When people did come back and spent a couple of weeks they were like, 'I get it. I want to be here,'" Barra said.
The GM CEO said "it's a very small minority that I think are just going to be unhappy about everything. I call them cave people ... 'Currently Against Virtually Everything,'" she said. "So many people are excited to be there. They're excited to be in an industry that's changing the world for the better, and so that's what I focus on."
Next year, GM will move some of those employees from its global Renaissance Center headquarters to the Dan Gilbert-backed Hudson's Detroit development. GM has not said how many people will work out of the 12-story mixed-use building at the site. As the development's anchor tenant, the automaker will lease the top two office floors of the structure, which will include office, retail and event space, for 15 years, The Detroit News previously reported.
On Thursday, when asked about the decision to leave the RenCen, Barra said GM has to have the "offices and facilities (that) support the way work is done."
And as GM talked to Gilbert, the company realized it could be the "flagship tenant in that building, which is just gorgeous, and help that area."
As for the RenCen, over the next year GM, Bedrock and the city will evaluate "what's the best use for either that building or that property. We're committed to doing the right thing. It's such prime real estate, when you look at it, and the views are spectacular, so I'm sure we're going to come up with a good solution."
When asked if demolition of the RenCen is under consideration, Barra said: "... we're first looking at what can be done and what would be the appropriate use ... We've got a year to do that, so that's where we're focused."
khall@detroitnews.com