Starbucks company employees will return to the office for at least three days by the end of the month.
Beginning Jan. 30, employees who are within commuting distance must report to the coffee giant’s Seattle headquarters on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and a third day determined by their teams. The memo did not specify what qualified as commuting distance.
Employees closer to regional offices will also be required to come three days a week, although the specific days are not mandatory.
The coffee giant’s workforce has been working remotely since the start of the pandemic. In September, Starbucks asked those employees to work from the office one to two days a week. But CEO Howard Schultz wrote in a memo to employees on Wednesday that badge data showed employees were not complying.
The new policy is designed to “rebuild our connection with each other and synchronize teams and efforts,” said Schultz’s memo, who will leave the company this spring. He also compared the continued work of remote workers to baristas, who never had that option.
Schultz stepped in as interim chief executive in April after former CEO Kevin Johnson retired. In his third stint with the company, he has announced a $450 million plan to reinvent Starbucks and fix what he called “self-inflicted mistakes.”
Starbucks isn’t the only company to recently enforce stricter return policies. Bob Iger, returning for his second term at disney, employees told Monday they had to go back to the office. Elon Musk raised expectations for office presence at Twitter after acquiring the social media company. And Apple Mandated employees will return to work three days a week in September.
