Citigroup, Google Among Firms Tightening Return-to-Office Rules

Amazon has ordered employees to return to their offices three days a week starting May 1. (Bloomberg)

Companies are getting serious about returning to the office despite opposition from workers set on keeping their flexible hours. In one of the latest moves, Citigroup Inc. said this week it is requiring stricter office attendance compliance.Amid mounting layoffs and signs of a softening economy, a growing number of firms such as  Blackrock Inc., Chipotle Mexican Grill Inc., Snap Inc. and Walt Disney Co.  have felt emboldened to require workers to show up four days a week, testing the limits of the half in-office, half at-home post-pandemic equilibrium.

Under the stepped up return-to-office push, workers will need to decide whether to leave or stick it out. Though overall quit rates are easing in the US, a recent Markets Live Pulse survey found roughly one in two finance professionals said they’d switch jobs — or already have — if their managers cut back work-from-home.

This year’s return-to-office policies follow 2022 mandates from the likes of Goldman Sachs Group Inc., Morgan Stanley, Apple Inc. and Peloton Interactive Inc. (Last year Bloomberg LP required its workers to return to the office a minimum of three days a week.)

Meta is cutting 10,000 jobs and will close about 5,000 open roles. Bloomberg's Sarah Frier says morale at the company is low.

Some executives have tried to rebrand the renewed RTO effort, emphasizing a continued commitment to flexibility while sounding familiar notes on the value of “creativity,” “collaboration” and “culture.” Meanwhile, speculation has arisen among disaffected workers about other reasons executives want workers back in person, such as  keeping corporate tax breaks or as a way to quietly trim headcount without announcing layoffs.

Here’s an updated list of major companies ordering workers back to their desks in 2023:

1. Amazon.com Inc. The company’s  three-day-a-week office policy started in May. That’s after CEO Andy Jassy said in October that managers would be able to decide how often, if at all, their staff should come in. The order came on the heels of a mass layoff of some 18,000 employees and took many by surprise. The company announced a second round of layoffs, cutting another 9,000 workers in March. Staff at the Seattle headquarters staged a walkout, protesting the return-to-office mandate and the firm’s climate impact. “There is something about being face-to-face with somebody, looking them in the eye and seeing they’re fully immersed in whatever you’re discussing that bonds people together,” Jassy said on the company’s blog.
2. AT&T Inc. CEO John Stankey plans to scale back office space by shedding all locations aside from nine core offices. The company implemented a new mandate requiring more than 60,000 managers to work in person at least three days a week, starting in July for the Dallas and Atlanta offices and elsewhere by September. Stankey insisted that some things have to be done “sitting side by side,” adding that the 15% of staffers who don’t live near one of the core offices will have to “make decisions that are appropriate to their lives” regarding their future with the company. Some employees view it as a move to reduce staff. 
3. BlackRock Inc. The asset manager is calling employees back to the office at least four days a week starting in September. This change comes nearly two years after the company's rollout of its “Future of Work” pilot program in late 2021, which required about half of its staff to work in the office three days a week. CEO Rob Goldstein and Caroline Heller, global head of human resources, wrote in a staff memo that career development comes from in-person “teaching moments between team members.”
4. Chipotle Mexican Grill Inc. CEO Brian Niccol notified corporate staff in May that they’ll be required on-site four days a week. This shift marks a tightening of the rules laid out by the food chain in March, which instructed workers to head into the office at least three days a week.  Niccol told staff in an email that the company is chasing “aggressive objectives” in a dynamic economy. Under his direction, the company is also undertaking a restructuring.
5. Citigroup Inc. The bank, which has stood out as one of the Wall Street firms most friendly to remote work, announced this week employees will face consequences if they don’t meet the firm's three-day in-office requirement. Compliance will be considered when rating performance and crafting pay packages, according to a person familiar with the matter. The company is also considering tracking workers’ building-entry data in the UK, which it has already been collecting at major offices in the US. “We are committed to our hybrid work model and proud of the flexibility it provides our colleagues,” Citigroup said in a statement. “As necessary, we hold colleagues accountable for adhering to their in-office days.”
6. General Motors Co. The automaker’s return-to-office began in January, with employees required to report to offices three days a week. The announcement caused an uproar among corporate employees, catching many off-guard. The new requirement appeared to walk back the firm’s “Work Appropriately” policy, which most took as a vote of confidence in staff to work the hours and in the places that best suit them.
7. Google Employees at Alphabet’s Google are pushing back against the tech giant’s recent move to mandate that staffers spend at least three days a week in person. “Not everyone believes in ‘magical hallway conversations,’ but there’s no question that working together in the same room makes a positive difference,” Google’s Chief People Officer Fiona Cicconi wrote in an email to employees, adding that attendance will now be a factor in performance reviews. This decision comes after Alphabet Inc., Google’s parent company, executed the largest job cuts in its history, reducing its workforce by more than 6%, or about 12,000 employees in January. 
8. JPMorgan Chase & Co. The company told its managing directors that they are now required to show up in person every weekday, scrapping the hybrid arrangement adopted during the pandemic for its top staff. The bank's operating committee expressed that high-ranking executives should “lead by example” in an internal memo that elaborates that leaders must be “visible on the floor” for client meetings and accessibility. Earlier this year, CEO Jamie Dimon said that working remotely “doesn’t work” for younger staff or bosses. 
9. Lyft Inc. The company’s new CEO David Risher, appointed in April, is requiring staff to be in the office at least three days a week starting this fall. This decision backpedals the San Francisco-based company’s previously “fully flexible” work policy, which granted staff the option to live and work wherever they wanted. The policy change was announced just a day after Lyft cut about 26% of its workforce, a little over 1,000 jobs, in an attempt to regain competitive footing within the ride-share industry. 
10. Meta Platforms Inc. CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced plans to let go another 10,000 workers and close 5,000 open roles this spring in another round of deep cuts following the company’s first large-scale layoff of 11,000 employees last year. While Meta was one of the first tech companies to offer all of its employees the ability to work from home, Zuckerberg is now asking staff to come in three days a week starting in September, though employees previously designated remote will be allowed to remain off site.
11. News Corp. The publisher of the Wall Street Journal and other newspapers has issued a memo to its workforce encouraging them to return to the office for the “subtleties of body language and the nuances of knowing glances,” for which working from home does not allow. Though CEO Robert Thomson conveyed his desire for staff to come in more than they are now, the company has remained vague about exactly how many days employees are expected to show up. “There is some room for flexibility in the work environment, but that flexibility is not boundless,” Thomson said in the memo. “Attendance is an absolute imperative as collaboration and cooperation are priorities for each of our businesses.”
12. Salesforce Inc. The software firm is piloting  an unusual tactic to coax workers back their desks: For two weeks in June, the company has offered to donate $10 in charity for every day an employee comes to the office. Though it was one of the first tech companies to embrace remote work arrangements, late last year the firm told salespeople that live near an office to increase in-person attendance in response to sluggish revenue growth. CEO Marc Benioff, a long-standing proponent of remote work, has said that the company will never return to “how it was” pre-pandemic. Salesforce slashed about 8,000 jobs in January and closed offices across the US, and has left the door open for additional cuts.
13. Snap Inc. CEO Evan Spiegel told staff they were expected to report to the office four days a week in February, a policy he calls “default together.” The mandate comes after the developer of Snapchat and other social media platforms laid off 20% of its workforce in August. “What each of us may sacrifice in terms of our individual convenience, I believe we will reap in terms of our collective success,” Spiegel wrote in a memo. “We’ve been working this way for so long that I’m afraid we’ve forgotten what we’ve lost — and what we could gain — by spending more time together.”
14. Starbucks Corp. Interim CEO Howard Schultz ordered corporate workers back to offices three days a week in January. In response, dozens of corporate employees signed an open letter protesting the policy and the company’s alleged violation of baristas’ labor rights. Schultz said corporate staff “made a promise” last year to be in the office one to two days a week, but that badging data has shown that many have fallen short. The policy is now a requirement, Schultz said: “It’s that critical to our business success.” 
15. Walmart Inc. The company will close tech offices in Austin, Texas, Portland, Oregon, and Carlsbad, California, requiring affected employees to relocate to the company's other offices, including one in San Bruno, California, or its headquarters in Bentonville, Arkansas, where they will need to report to the office at least twice a week. Those who choose to leave the company as a result of the closures will receive severance pay, according to an internal memo. 
16. Walt Disney Co. CEO Bob Iger, who returned to lead the company in November, has handed down a four-day in-office mandate that began in March. Over 2,300 employees signed a petition urging reconsideration of the policy, saying the mandate will “dramatically reduce productivity, output, and efficiency,” according to the Washington Post. The company announced it would cut  7,000 jobs shortly after ordering staff back to the office. “In a creative business like ours, nothing can replace the ability to connect, observe, and create with peers that comes from being physically together, nor the opportunity to grow professionally by learning from leaders and mentors,” Iger said in the memo announcing the policy. 

Walking to work in New York. (Bloomberg)

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