The trouble with Elon Musk

Trying to solve Twitter’s problems by more engineering and fewer people may well and truly misfire for Elon Musk. Picture: Muhammed Selim Korkutata/Anadolu

What on earth has got into Elon Musk?

For a man who is a huge forward thinker, he’s beginning to look like a throwback to a time when workers were expendable and work-life-balance had not been articulated.

This week, the new Twitter owner, having already sacked half his workforce of 7500, delivered an ultimatum to remaining staff to go “hardcore” or go.

Musk announced that staff should sign up to working their butts off or leave, albeit with three months’ severance pay.

In words that quickly flew around social media, the multi-billionaire broke all contemporary management and leadership rules, saying: “Going forward, to build a breakthrough Twitter 2.0 and succeed in an increasingly competitive world, we will need to be extremely hardcore.

“This will mean working long hours at high intensity. Only exceptional performance will constitute a passing grade.”

Now, millions of workers around the world, especially in developing countries, are required to go hardcore every day under threat of losing their jobs, or far, far worse. But for a modern owner in the West to articulate such a “hunger games” philosophy is startling in an age when employees are encouraged to believe they have power to dictate the terms of how, where and when they will work. It’s the bosses who are urged to play nice at a time of shortages.

But perhaps Musk is not so far off the beam in his bid for large-scale structural adjustment of his new business.

The past few weeks have seen a swag of jobs lost across the tech sector here and overseas and in some ways, Musk can be seen as simply pursuing that tried and true management technique of cutting the low-hanging fruit.

As others have pointed out, trying to solve Twitter’s problems by more engineering and fewer people may well and truly misfire, but Musk is probably safe to assume he can get workers back on the tools if needed, in a world growing more fearful of recession.

Musk’s decidedly non-EQ language reminds us that while for decades now, managers and leaders have been urged to treat their workers as they themselves would like to be treated, civility and reasonable demands are far from givens in 21st century workplaces.

The current global shortage of skilled staff (blamed variously on demographics, disrupted immigration, Covid-19 and changing attitudes to work) has led to a tsunami of advice from consultants and business schools to employers to pay more attention to their workers or risk an exodus.

Pay, the surveys show, is of course still important, but respect, autonomy and serious opportunity for career development and learning, are regularly cited as factors in someone deciding to stay in a job or head for the door.

Thus tight labour markets are likely to yield more civilised management while the gloves tend to come off when companies can pick and choose from a bigger pool of eager candidates.

But the recent spate of layoffs has messed with the picture of a tech sector crying out for talent.

At a macro level all the calculations are that Australia will need many, many thousands of tech-savvy workers if it is to capitalise on opportunities and build a strong digital economy. Yet at the same time, there is evidence companies are not doing enough to retain and develop staff.

They may not be doing an Elon – using a big fat stick to try to drive change – but they may well be complacent about what is needed to build a committed labour force.

A survey out on Saturday shows the contradictory signals: significant fears of redundancy among tech workers in their 20s along with a deal of unhappiness because they feel their bosses aren’t doing enough to build good working environments and sustainable career paths.

The survey of 1000 under-30s by the HR tech platform, HiBob, found one in five young Australians working in tech expect to be made redundant with 49 per cent unsure of their current job security. Their concern has been “spurred on by the recent layoffs of thousands of staff in Australia by tech firms like Meta, Twitter and Salesforce” the report says.

About half the respondents working in tech companies are in non-tech roles such as sales, marketing, customer support, finance and administration and it’s those employees who are most concerned (25 per cent) about being laid off or fired compared with those who are in a tech product role (17 per cent).

And the survey found 20 per cent of workers felt their experience at work did not meet their expectations, with employers “failing to impress on a number of career, societal and work-life balance issues”.

Economic uncertainty is having an impact, with 44 per cent of young tech workers reporting the economic downturn has already forced them to change their career plans, job search and employment considerations.

It’s likely that some of this uncertainty stems from the high aspirations of young tech types coming up against the realities of the workplace.

The report says this is a generation which is “driven and highly invested in their growth and development.” But it’s also a generation ripe for disappointment it seems: only one in three (33 per cent) report they have a clear career path mapped out with them by their company; less than a quarter (24 per cent) say they have access to a formal mentoring program; and only 36 per cent say their manager allows them to participate and learn new skills.

It’s a red flag for a sector which, like Elon Musk, needs heaps of good people as well as good tech. But there might also need to be some work done on flattening some of those high career expectations. It’s impressive just how smart and energised is this younger generation, confident they can fashion work to fit into the rest of life, not vice versa, and clear about their demands.

Still, as some of the gloss comes off some sections of tech, a reality check might be in order.