Following Disney’s surprise CEO shift back to popular former chief Bob Iger in November, it is clearly more popular in the industry to be on Team Iger than Team Chapek.
But is even the authoritative voice of Saint Iger, he of the crisp white cuffs and legendary prowess at massaging star egos, enough to cajole Disney’s rank and file back to the office? It’s not just a test of Iger’s command: He may well lead other companies to call their remote and hybrid staff back to their desks following an era of working unobserved in cozy pandemic pajamas.
Opinions remain mixed on the virtues of in-person work, but David Offenberg, an associate professor of finance at Loyola Marymount University who focuses on the entertainment business, told TheWrap that some in the industry have rearranged their lives during the pandemic to the point that it will be difficult to lure them back to the office.
“There are people who have been working two jobs because no one is observing them — two salaried, full-time jobs,” Offenberg told TheWrap.
And even without such obvious subterfuge, in April the New York Times cited studies that concluded that after pandemic shutdowns, 60% of workers whose jobs can be done at home wanted to work remotely most or all of the time.
Iger didn’t make an announcement to the world, but his Jan. 9 memo to Disney staffers made his marching orders loud and clear: “Starting March 1, employees currently working in a hybrid fashion will be asking to spend four days a week on-site, targeting Monday through Thursday as in-person workdays,” he wrote.
By the time of Iger’s announcement, Warner Bros. Discovery had called remote workers back to the job three days a week, spawning a message board where employees expressed often-belligerent attitudes about the move, as reported by Deadline. NBCUniversal and Netflix didn’t respond to request for comment, but industry watchers confirmed that both companies have instituted three-day-a-week protocols. Disney didn’t respond to a request for comment on the four-day-a-week mandate.
One former Netflix staffer who asked not to be named while seeking new work, said via email that Netflix’s three-day week began in April but there was “no ‘enforcement’ unless you aren’t getting your job done.” However, that worker suggested that enforcement could become more strict following the recent exit of co-CEO Reed Hastings, “because, as the architect of the culture, he was the biggest proponent of adhering to freedom and responsibility across the board.”
One attorney, who didn’t want to be named because of his prominent clientele, told TheWrap he does not see major companies following Iger’s lead, but believes they’re simply responding to post-pandemic realities.
Disney, Netflix, Warner and NBCUniversal are “struggling with trying to balance the new paradigm and what some managers believe is the best way to build teams and work in teams, which is, they believe, in-person most of the week,” he said.
Added the attorney, “I think this will cause some movement of the personnel but mostly not in the management ranks.”
Bryan Sullivan, a partner at Early Sullivan Wright Gizer & McRae who focuses on entertainment and investment, said the call back to the office at Disney or elsewhere, is likely to remain somewhat flexible.
“It’s also going to be very hard just from an employment policies [and] practices standpoint for a company as large as Disney, Netflix or Apple to implement a policy companywide, right? How do you enforce it? Who gets who gets to stay at home? Who doesn’t?”
Sullivan said a lasting effect of the pandemic shift to remote work may be that entertainment employers open up new positions that are designed as remote from the get-go, rather than arguing with reluctant workers about returning to their old offices.
Offenberg agreed, adding that Hollywood’s return-to-the-office mandates might turn into a boon for smaller entertainment companies seeking top talent.
“That will create amazing hiring opportunities for smaller, more nimble companies,” he said. “There are going to be great people who have amazing skill set at these big entertainment companies who just don’t want to go back to the office. There are going to be some small companies who are very, very happy to pick off that talent.”
Tom Nunan, a former network and studio executive who served as an executive producer on the Oscar-winning “Crash,” chooses to look on the positive side of the back-to-work equation, and said in an email that he takes Iger’s directive at “face value.”
“Having worked with Bob for a few years in the late ’80s… it was always ‘what you see is what you get,’” he wrote. “Iger’s a leader who studies data but then follows his gut, like many of the greats in the Hollywood of old and new… It may be an old-fashioned idea, hauling folks back into work with the idea that human interaction, not virtual is called for — but I think it’s a wise one.”
Added Nunan, “True leadership is required right now, and leadership is often described as doing the right thing, not always the popular thing. I think working together, in-person again, is likely the right thing.”
