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- Ken Griffin said that remote working was weakening the "social contract" of companies.
- The Citadel founder told Bloomberg it could make it easier for them to lay people off.
- Major US firms are pushing back against remote working and telling workers to return to the office.
Ken Griffin has warned that working from home will make it easier for companies to fire people.
The Citadel founder, who is a notoriously tough boss, told Bloomberg that remote working is harming corporate culture and could contribute to companies deciding to lay people off, as the return to office fight continues to heat up.
"What worries me in a hybrid work environment or work-from-home environment, the cultural or social contract that holds people together in a company is unquestionably weaker," said Griffin.
"That worries me in terms of willingness of corporate America to make cuts in the workforce," he added.
Griffin's comments come as major US companies push workers to return to the office. Both Amazon and Meta have said that their employees must come in at least three days a week, or risk losing their jobs.
Despite this rhetoric, many companies are also cutting down on office space. Desk booking platform Robin Powered surveyed over 500 business owners and facilities managers across the US and found that 75% are planning to reduce their office square footage in the next year. This was a 30% increase from 2022, it said.
Griffin also warned that remote working was having a negative impact on corporate culture, pointing to the stories of so-called "Zoom firings" that became notorious during the pandemic.
The most famous example of this involved Better.com CEO Vishal Garg, who faced fierce criticism after he fired over 900 employees over a Zoom call.
Garg later told his remaining staff that he had "blundered the execution" of the layoffs, and said in an interview with TechCrunch that he had gone through "a lot of leadership training" in the years after the firings.
"We have all read about companies that are firing thousands of people on Zoom calls," Griffin said.
"There is no sense of 'That is Jane who has worked down the hall from me for years. I will go the extra distance to try to keep Jane here.' Here is the email to all, here is the video conference with a bunch of people, goodbye," he said.
Citadel did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Insider, made outside normal working hours.