Salesforce Attempts To Lure Employees Back To Office With $10 Charity Initiative

In a desperate move to get employees back at the office, Salesforce has come up with a rare initiative. The software company is willing to shell out up to $2.5 million in donations in return for employees showing up to the office.

The company announced a fundraising initiative, dubbed "Connect for Good," that will see Salesforce donating $10 to a local charity for every day an employee reports to the office between June 12 and June 23, according to a message posted on the company's Slack channel, Fortune reported.

Salesforce is reportedly looking to raise between $1 million and $2.5 million to give out to local charities to lure staffers back to the office. The staff will have the next two days to vote for which local charities they think the company should donate to.

Some staff will still be allowed to work from home, depending on which team they belong to. Salesforce will also donate $10 when these remote workers attend a virtual event.

"Giving back is deeply embedded in everything we do, and we're proud to introduce Connect for Good to encourage employees to help raise $1 million for local nonprofits," a Salesforce spokesperson told Gizmodo.

Salesforce is also looking to track staffers' initial badge swipes daily, but it said the review won't give the company information about how long workers were at the office or how many swipes were made by employees each day.

The company's return-to-office (RTO) efforts come as other tech companies see some pushback from employees who prefer remote work.

In February, Amazon employees drafted an internal petition to oppose CEO Andy Jassy's RTO mandate that required workers to report to the office starting May 1. The internal petition received about 5,000 signatures.

"By arbitrarily forcing return-to-office without providing data to support it and despite clear evidence that it is the wrong decision for employees, Amazon has failed its role as earth's best employer," the employees reportedly said at the time.

Some Salesforce and Google employees returned to office for fear that they might lose their jobs amid mass tech layoffs, NY Post reported in April. In mid-2022, Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff said RTO mandates were "never going to work."

In March, Benioff told journalist Kara Swisher in an interview that for Salesforce's new employees, "we know empirically that they do better if they're in the office, meeting people, being onboarded, being trained. And if they are at home and going through that process, we don't think they're as successful."

Benioff said the company will have both remote and office workers, adding 20% of all Salesforce workers have been remote "from day one." He noted he doesn't "want to force anybody" to come to the office.

However, an Insider report said in November that some employees were ordered to return to the office. One insider told the outlet that order affects salespeople residing near Salesforce offices and the setup was only "for now." A salesperson said several teams would be required to be in the office every day while some units would only be required to be in office for part of a work week.

A spokesperson told Insider at the time that the company has "a hybrid work environment" that allows teams and leaders to "decide when and where they come together to collaborate."

Meanwhile, Salesforce's "wellness" culture has also taken a hit, especially after a Wall Street Journal report revealed the company continued to pay actor Matthew McConaughey big money for appearing in promotional ads amid a series of layoffs.

The tech company announced it was laying off 10% of its global workforce in January. Some employees said they only found out they were part of the mass layoffs in February.