Salesforce lures staff with $10 donation to charity for each day they're in the office

Salesforce is encouraging staff to return to the office by pledging to make charitable donations, against the backdrop of CEO Marc Benioff's stated belief that staff productivity is higher when his troops – particularly newbies – work together. According to Fortune, the SaaS-based CRM slinger sent a message via the #all- …

[Alien Doctor 1.1]

wow!

Great way to reduce your tax bill.

[MatthewSt]

Re: wow!

Spending $10 to knock $2 off your tax bill doesn't seem like a great way to me...

If they get $8 worth of publicity from it then it might be worthwhile, but businesses very rarely do it for the tax break (unless the charity is run by a friend...)

[ecofeco]

Re: wow!

Still cheaper than actually paying the employees more, innit?

[Cybersaber]

Trust me...

People need to understand math better.

You can't aggregate data you don't posses. Someone, somewhere the thing or person DOING the aggregation has the data to use this in ways other than described.

So either one of three things is true:

A) The spokesperson claiming it will be anonymous doesn't understand mathematics OR how to guarantee integrity of anonymity.

B) They're completely honest and above board, but nieve and being used as a patsy by someone higher up who absolutely tends to access the data to use for their own reasons.

C) They're absolute liars and this is a BS smokescreen to use it EXACTLY as someone fears.

Either way, they can't be trusted, either due to incompetence or malice.

Edit to add: Even if they were meaning to use it only as described, anyone competence and integrity to actually make that guarantee stick would word it as 'we won't use it this way even though we can. Please trust us.'

<Second edit to add a third option.>

[ecofeco]

Re: Trust me...

Incompetence or malice?

Why not both?

[YetAnotherXyzzy]

Finally, a company using a carrot instead of a stick to get workers physically present. I'm a big WFH fan, as are many of us here, but it's nice to see someone trying incentives instead of threats.

[Anonymous Coward]

Why should a company require either threats or incentives? Your contract will say where you're required to work. Your employer can require you to respect your contract, and if you refuse to do so you'll be invited to find another job.

[NeilPost]

Because the world has changed. That’s why…. or is Salesforce written under the hood in COBOL 60.

[NeilPost]

This isn’t a carrot. Not even a baby carrot.

It would be cheaper for the staffer to make the donation them-self, and register is as a charitable tax deduction than having to cough up for fuel/rail/bus costs, waste of your personal time commuting and a Tesco Meal Deal (assuming it’s a Global thing) for lunch.

[YetAnotherXyzzy]

I agree with you. It's not a great incentive. Personally I wouldn't give up WFH for even a decent incentive, which this is not. My point, which I appear to have made poorly, was to favorably compare Salesforce's approach to the sadly common "come to the office or we fire you".

If I worked for Salesforce now, I'd be thinking "no thanks, I'm fine here at home." If I worked for Google now, I wouldn't have time to be commenting here, I'd be too busy looking for work elsewhere.

[Ace2]

It costs more than $10 (time, gas+wear&tear or ticket) to commute, basically everywhere. You could just stay home, donate $10, and get the tax deduction for yourself. What a dumb incentive.

[Doctor Syntax]

Even better, you could attend several virtual events a day and have the company make several donations.

[ecofeco]

Bwhahahaahahahaha

Yeah, that'll get me all fired up!

Not.

[Mayday]

How about this?

Let me account for my commute as “time in office” and pay for my lunch. Then it might be worth my while to go to the office.