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Some Major Companies Want Workers Back In Office Full-Time; Battle To Get Workers Back In The Office Heats Up; 100-Plus Cubans Migrants Apprehended In Florida Over Weekend; Search Is On For Navy Scandal Mastermind "Fat Leonard". Aired 1:30-3p ET

Aired September 06, 2022 - 13:30   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

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[13:33:12]

ANA CABRERA, CNN HOST: The United Kingdom has a new prime minister. Liz Truss met with the queen today in Scotland to make it official just after Boris Johnson visited and submitted his resignation.

Now Truss is promising to be more conservative and models herself after Margaret Thatcher. And she vowed to lead the U.K. out of its economic crisis.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

LIZ TRUSS, BRITISH PRIME MINISTER: As strong as this storm may be, I know that the British people are stronger. Our country was built by people who get things done.

We have huge reserves of talent, of energy, and determination. I am confident that together, we can ride out the storm. We can rebuild our economy.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CABRERA: The U.K. is facing rising fuel prices and a possible recession. Boris Johnson was forced out by his own party after a series of scandals.

Well, with Labor Day officially over, more companies say it's time for their workers to return to the office. Some major corporations are nixing the remote options that became the norm throughout the pandemic and are requiring a full return to the workplace.

But do workers really want that? Not so much.

CNN's Vanessa Yurkevich is here.

You have been doing a lot of reporting on this. So give us the lay of the land here. I mean, is the work from home revolution just gone?

VANESSA YURKEVICH, CNN BUSINESS & POLITICS CORRESPONDENT: No, not exactly. One expert put it this way. Back to school, back to the office, back to reality. That's what a lot of companies are pushing right now.

But the problem is, as you said, workers are not feeling that so much. And 56 percent of all full-time workers in the U.S. say they can do their jobs from home and just as well. And that's a really big number. That's about 70 million workers across the United States.

[13:35:06]

And some of these companies that are requiring this "into office movement" starting today, they want people in the office full time, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Bank of America, Tesla. These are companies based on the east coast but also in major cities.

One expert saying that the reason you're seeing this push and pull between employers and employees is because folks in these major cities don't want to do the long commutes anymore.

They don't want to get stuck in traffic. They don't want to give up their time that they could be spending at home potentially being productive.

Goldman Sachs saying it right here, "September 6th" -- that's today - "colleagues can enter Goldman Sachs offices across the country, except in New York City and Lima, regardless of vaccination status, no requirements to participate in testing or wear face coverings."

So basically, saying, guys, there's no reason for you not to come into the office right now.

There are some companies getting on board with the work-at-home movement. These are companies that are saying, hey, it's OK, if you can do your job at home, no problem -- Airbnb, Spotify, Twitter and Yelp.

And this is particularly interesting because Yelp put out a statement and they said that they're getting rid of office space in three major cities because just 1 percent of their workforce came into the office voluntarily once they said, hey, open season, guys, come back.

So they're getting rid of their footprint and allowing people to continue to work from home.

And this really -- this is really why it's an issue because there's 11.2 million jobs available in the United States right now. That's about two jobs for every job seeker.

So people have a lot of options right now. So if you're a company that's pushing folks back into the office, is that a good way to do it if people have options right now?

And it's also interesting to note, within this Gallup poll, this number here, 60 percent of all people who are working remotely said they would consider switching jobs if their company pushed them to go back into the office.

So you just see that resistance from workers but that push from employers to try to get people back into the office. I mean, office showdown, this is going to go on --

(CROSSTALK)

YURKEVICH: -- for a few more years I think --

CABRERA: It's interesting --

YURKEVICH: -- as people sort themselves out.

CABRERA: It's interesting that Yelp is getting rid of their footprint.

YURKEVICH: Yes.

CABRERA: They're saying, OK, we'll take this and run with it and have some savings when it comes to the cost of providing that office space.

YURKEVICH: It's expensive real estate.

CABRERA: Yes, no kidding.

Thank you for that report, Vanessa. A lot of curiosity about how this is all going to revolve itself.

I want to bring in Kristin Kelley now. She is the chief marketing officer for CareerBuilder.

And, Kristin, thanks for joining us.

The vast majority of workers who have the option to work remotely want to. According to Gallup, only 6 percent want to work entirely on site. That same survey also shows employees, who aren't working in a location, report significantly lower engagement, higher burnout, increased desire to quit.

Are you surprised by any of those findings?

KRISTIN KELLEY, CHIEF MARKETING OFFICER, CAREERBUILDER: No. I don't think I'm surprised at all. Personally, I think why this is such a big topic is we're going into probably very close to the second anniversary of when the pandemic, you know, hit us.

Two years has flown by in some cases but also felt like the longest of two years. But people have gotten comfortable working from home and they have gotten to the point of very productive.

They're highly engaged because they're much more in control and in the driver's seat of their schedules and their breaks. And that has been very positive, I think, for the workforce.

CABRERA: So why are companies so eager to have employees back in the office?

KELLEY: So I think it has a lot to do with working -- and humans like human interaction. And there's absolutely a level of collaboration that happens when people are together in the office.

I think the old term of water cooler talk is a real thing, and people get a lot out of those human interactions.

But I will say that we have seen, as we said earlier, a lot of employees are pushing back a little bit on that. Not one size doe fits all.

But we've seen in our statistics, too, when employers are more open minded about what flexibility or remote means that they can get more applications in a tight market just by indicating in the job itself that it is a remote job or has some remote aspect to it.

CABRERA: Vanessa mentioned how Goldman Sachs is one of the companies requiring a return to the workplace. But we checked, in the past two years, were some of Goldman's most profitable ever.

Is there any hard evidence to show that remote work is less productive or less effective than being in the office?

[13:40:01]

KELLEY: I actually think quite the contrary. We have our own study that we have fielded as well as there's many more out there that would say people are more productive at home.

I have seen one recent stat saying they average more hours, leading up to an entire day more a month if they are able to work from home.

I think when the pandemic first started, collaboration tools and the ability to be efficient and be productive were not where they are today. Companies have made huge progress in getting people set up to work in a remote fashion.

So I think it will continue to be a very interesting point. But people are absolutely, in my humble opinion, more productive working from home. But maybe not fully, but when they do have that flexibility in that aspect to their job.

CABRERA: Who do you think has the leverage now, workers or employers?

KELLEY: I think, right now, the way the market is basically low supply, high demand, that workers have a very advantageous outlook right now that they should be taking advantage of.

I also think workers have more networks than they used to. They have time to do ample research. They have more opportunities around them.

A really popular thing right now is upskilling, reskilling, so people are being, you know, pushed to think outside their comfort zone and look at skill sets they have and how they can apply to other industries or other types of jobs.

So this kind of explorer mode to job seeking is a real thing right now. And I think employers, it behooves them to turn on their listening skills and understand what is motivating people to change jobs or move jobs and really kind of build that into the core of what they offer to employees.

CABRERA: We were all forced on how to do our jobs in the past couple of years, so I think it expanded the minds of what's possible.

Kristin Kelley, thank you so much for offering your incites today.

KELLEY: Absolutely. Thank you.

CABRERA: It is a potentially fatal choice. But right now, a record number of Cubans are willing to risk it all to get to the U.S. We'll have the latest from south Florida next.

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[13:46:58]

CABRERA: Welcome back. Florida officials are seeing a growing number of Cuban migrants arriving by sea. More than 100 were apprehended this past weekend after making the dangerous journey.

It's gotten to the point where U.S. Customs and Border Protection is sending more agents to south Florida.

CNN's Carlos Suarez is in Miami.

Carlos, just how big of a surge is this? Provide some perspective for us.

CARLOS SUAREZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Ana, it's a big enough of a surge that, as you mentioned, Border Patrol says they are going to send additional help here to south Florida to deal with the growing number of Cuban migrants and Haitian migrants that are trying to make it into the U.S.

Coast Guard officials here in Miami, they have stopped short of calling this a crisis, though they recognize they are also increasing the number of patrols off the coast of Florida.

Since Friday, the Coast Guard tells us that they responded to at least four groups of Cuban migrants trying to make it into the U.S. Yesterday, a group of about 13 men and two women were stopped just north of Miami.

And on Saturday, two groups of Cuban migrants also made it to the Keys. On Friday, we're told that another group of 45 Cuban migrants were stop on board of a fishing vessel near Key West.

According to Coast Guard, the overall numbers we're seeing out here, that brings the total number of interdictions involving Cuban migrants to just over 5,000 in the fiscal year alone.

You compare those numbers to prior years, and you can see just how many more Cubans are trying to make it to Florida.

All of this is taking place as Cuba is dealing with its worst economic crisis in decades. We're talking about a shortage of food, no work, as well as continued repression by the Cuban government there -- Ana?

CABRERA: Carlos Suarez, thank you. We know you're going to stay on top of this.

President Biden right now holding his first cabinet meeting since March. His fourth since he became president. He made some comments off the top, which primarily focused on his recent accomplishments, including the Inflation Reduction Act and the CHIPS act, which should bolster domestic production and chip production, specifically, here at home.

He also said he would speak to the new prime minister of the U.K. later today.

[13:49:15]

He is the mastermind of the largest corruption scandal in U.S. Navy history, and now he's on the run. The man known as Fat Leonard escaping house arrest just weeks before his sentencing. The latest next.

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CABRERA: A manhunt is on for the mastermind behind the largest Navy corruption scandal in U.S. history. Authorities say Leonard Francis, also known as Fat Leonard, escaped from house arrest just weeks before he was to be sentenced.

Let's bring in CNN Pentagon correspondent, Barbara Starr.

Barbara, how did he get away?

BARBARA STARR, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Well, that is the big mystery right now. As you say, Ana, in just three weeks, he was scheduled to be sentenced on federal charges involving fraud and bribery. Now, he had pled guilty to those in 2015 and was under house arrest.

And apparently, a couple of days ago, when agents went to his house to check on him, they found his electronic monitoring bracelet there, cut off and in some kind of container, and him, long gone.

Some neighbors said they even saw vans there in recent days with things being loaded on board.

So, he is on the lam and nobody knows at this point where he is. Obviously, U.S. Marshals, federal law enforcement, looking for him.

This was the largest fraud scandal in U.S. Navy history. And the number of Navy officers and Navy personnel had already pled guilty and had been charged also in regard to this.

[13:55:11]

The scheme that Fat Leonard, as he was known, had engineered spread at Navy ports across the Pacific. He operated port facilities there. And he was accused, along with these Navy people, of steering ships to those ports where he controlled the port operations.

So, they are very urgently looking for this man and getting him back under federal control -- Ana?

CABRERA: Right. His sentencing was scheduled just three weeks from now.

Thank you so much, Barbara Starr, for that reporting.

And that does it for us today. Thank you so much for joining us. You can always catch us, same time, same place. So I'll be back tomorrow. You can also join me on Twitter, @AnaCabrera.

The news continues with Victor Blackwell right after this.

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