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Kevin O\u2019Leary says the Gen Zers who shine the most are the ones who can get the job done\u2014whether they\u2019re in the office or not.<\/p>\n
O\u2019Leary, the founder of venture capital investment platform O\u2019Leary Ventures, said young people should focus on \u201cexecuting\u201d to be successful. The Shark Tank star, who has previously been critical of certain habits by younger people in the workforce, said those who want to succeed should focus on delivering results.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you\u2019re a Gen Zer and you can execute, and you can hit your mandate and deliver it on time, you move up and you make more money,\u201d he said in a video last week.\u00a0<\/p>\n
As an example, he cited an employee who started working for him a year-and-a-half ago in the United Arab Emirates. This unnamed employee quickly moved up the ladder because \u201cthe kid can execute,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
O\u2019Leary, whose own employees are spread between London, Los Angeles, and Canada, said this ability to \u201cexecute\u201d also has little to do with whether an employee is in the office or not.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you have to be in an office, why? Is my question? We do have people that sit in cubicles, but I\u2019d rather hire somebody who can execute and sit in their basement or in their backyard,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
His comments come as companies continue to call workers back to the office as flexibility wanes in the corporate world and more workers worry about AI-fueled displacement. After Amazon kicked off the full-time return-to-office movement in tech last year, several companies have followed suit. Starting last month, Instagram forced most employees back to the office five days a week as part of CEO Adam Mosseri\u2019s vision to create a \u201cwinning culture.\u201d Microsoft, too, asked employees in the Seattle area to come into the office three days a week starting late last month.<\/p>\n
Since the end of the pandemic, CEOs across corporate America have pushed return-to-office mandates as a means of increasing collaboration and relationship building. Still, a Harvard study last year found workers were willing to accept a 25% pay cut when comparing jobs that are either fully remote or hybrid with those that are full-time in-office.<\/p>\n
In the execution economy, O\u2019Leary said high performers often rise because of their work ethic, not their attendance.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019re just delivering, and they get rewarded because the whole team wants the people that can execute. That is the nature of the economy today,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
O\u2019Leary also pushed back on the argument that remote work leads to isolation. Loneliness, he said, is not new, and \u201cthat\u2019s not really what\u2019s at play here.\u201d<\/p>\n
His most recent comments build on past criticism of return-to-office mandates and support for recruiting top talent. In 2022, O\u2019Leary claimed 55% of the 10,000 people he works with across more than 50 portfolio companies did not come back to the office. As of January, 40% had not returned to the office.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen we threatened them, with saying, \u2018You\u2019ll lose your job if you don\u2019t come back,\u2019 they said \u2018Great, I\u2019m going to go work for somebody else,\u2019\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
In fact, he said in a January video that the companies looking to bring people back to the office are the ones suffering the most in the war for talent.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you\u2019re trying to say to people, \u2018Oh, you got to work in an office,\u2019 and that\u2019s the talent you want to hire, you\u2019ll just get the bottom quartile people that have no choice,\u201d he said. \u201cI don\u2019t want those people. I want my competitors to hire those people.\u201d<\/p>\n
#Kevin #OLeary #doesnt #care #work #basement #execute<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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