Meta employees to soon work from office three days a week: Report

Meta has ordered its employees to work from office three days a week from September 5, tech news site The Information reported (article beyond paywall) on Thursday. It marks a strict update in policy since the pro-remote culture embraced by the company during Covid-19.

Employees assigned to the office were notified of the change in work-from-home rules, which will not affect staff who primarily engage in remote work. The return-to-office notice mentioned that working in-person with the team encourages collaboration and is important for future plans.

The report added that the crackdown on remote work is part of the company’s broader push to work more efficiently amid a massive layoff of nearly 10,000 employees.

Read: Woman shares how Meta layoffs impacted her mental health

"We're committed to distributed work, and we're confident people can make a meaningful impact both from the office and at home. We're also committed to continuously refining our model to foster the collaboration, relationships and culture necessary for employees to do their best work," a Meta spokesperson quoted in the report said.

In June 2021, Facebook parent Meta allowed all full-time employees to work remotely. Zuckerberg had then said that the company realised that irrespective of the location, it was possible to get good work done. He expressed confidence about scaling up remote work amid technological advancements in video and virtual reality.

CEO Mark Zuckerberg had earlier announced plans to reduce office space with "50% or more of the company working remotely" by the end of the decade. The company’s Metaverse was also projected as a symbol of immersive work by simulating office spaces. However, after two rounds of layoffs, the social media giant is revisiting its take on working from anywhere model.

Read: Facebook owner Meta starts final round of layoffs

The March announcement of layoffs also included a note on how engineers earlier in their career ‘perform better on average when they work in-person with teammates at least three days a week,’ based on an analysis. ““Our early analysis of performance data suggests that engineers who either joined Meta in-person and then transferred to remote or remained in-person performed better on average than people who joined remotely. Our hypothesis is that it is still easier to build trust in person and that those relationships help us work more effectively," Zuckerberg wrote.

The company had also then asked hiring managers to stop recruiting remote position roles.

Other tech industry behemoths like Apple, Amazon and Google parent Alphabet have been re-evaluating their work from home policies and have asked staff to return to offices at least thrice weekly.

This week, Amazon employees staged a walkout over job cuts, work from office plans, and the business’ impact on the environment.

(With inputs from Bloomberg)