The work from home free-for-all is coming to an end

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Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. Amazon Chief Executive Andy Jassy set CEOs abuzz with envy—and white-collar workers with fear—this week with a surprise memo calling corporate staffers back to the office full time. Now, long after hybrid work seemed a settled matter at many companies, suddenly both sides are wondering: Who’s next? At a party in Seattle Tuesday evening, shortly after Jassy went public with his plan, his return-to-office rally cry was a hot topic among executives in attendance.

“It was the talk of the town," says Glenn Kelman, CEO of Seattle-based real-estate brokerage Redfin, who was there. Until Jassy’s memo, 4½ years after the Covid-19 pandemic sent everyone home, bosses and employees had largely reached a truce on part-time remote work. Many company leaders looked out at their substantially empty offices in quiet exasperation.

But they feared that forcing their employees to come to the office more often could send top performers fleeing for more flexible work setups elsewhere. The handful of companies that have returned to full-time, in-person work, including United Parcel Service and Goldman Sachs, have been outliers. The number of firms requiring five days in the office has actually fallen by 15% from a year ago, according to data from Flex Index, which tracks the work policies of more than 6,300 companies.

But a tougher labor market, especially for white-collar professionals, is now changing the calculus. With jobs harder to find and more companies willing to cut them, the balance of power is shifting from workers to bosses. Many of those bosses still worry that productivity and innovation suffer when people aren’t together in an office.