Companies from Apple Inc. to General Motors Co. to Goldman Sachs Group Inc. are grappling with how to coax employees back to the office. Harley-Davidson Inc. is taking a different tack: let them stay home.
The 119-year-old motorcycle manufacturer shuttered its Milwaukee headquarters in March 2020 and hasn’t fully opened it since. Chief Executive Officer Jochen Zeitz is even planning to repurpose the 500,000-square-foot complex later this year, showing just how serious Harley is in its commitment to remote work.
Zeitz, who took over in 2020, is the father of two young children and splits his time between homes in Milwaukee and his ranch near Santa Fe, New Mexico. He says a combination of the pandemic and fatherhood convinced him that the flexibility of virtual meetings was far preferable to “less inclusive” physical office spaces.
