Employers kick off 2025 by sending staff back to the office

Over the weekend, The Times published an article, “WPP faces staff revolt after demanding return to the office” (hat tip, William Turvill - a colleague from back in our City AM days).

It’s a good temperature check for the ongoing battles between companies who want to maintain an office presence - which is costly, particularly in major cities such as London - and staff, who was flexibility.

Here’s a point to ponder: is this driven by clients? And is this all clients, some very expensive clients, or some especially vocal clients?

I get it - clients pay the bills.

But staff do the work.

And much like product feedback, where it’s important to take customer feedback into account, running a successful product isn’t simply doing everything your customers tell you.

But I’d be surprised if this is a case of the WPP CEO blindly following a request from a noisy client. No, I think it’s more likely confirmation bias. If the CEO didn’t already think his staff should return to the office, he’s unlikely to be swayed by a client’s comments.

Plus, clients are probably being forced back to the office too. So why should others be able to work from home?

Which companies are ending WFH?

Other companies are enforcing “Return to Office” (RTO) too:

• Amazon

• JP Morgan

• Starling Bank

• Asda

• McKinsey

• Santander

• THG

• Salesforce

• Tesco

• Asos

• Barclays

• Boots

• JD Sports

• Deutsche Bank

• Dell

• IBM

It’s a shorter list for those rejecting RTO, although the big names matter:

• Spotify

• Airbnb

• Revolut

• Microsoft

• Dropbox

• Shopify

• Atom Bank

My experience

I have worked 3 days at home, 2 in the office, for a couple of years. It works well because it’s coordinated with others in my team. It’s not strictly mandated, but is encouraged.

If you miss a day it’s no big deal, but it does feel like you’re missing out if you rarely or never go in.

Going to the office is valuable if you have face to face meetings (planned or not), drive by chats in the kitchen, team lunches, after work socials, and so on.

It’s not as useful to go to the office if you sit all day on calls - that can be done from home.

I like seeing people but also like the flexibility. I never want to go back to the office full time. 2-3 days is the most I want to do. Plus, I wonder how many companies have the desk space for 100% of their people, 5 days a week. Most do not, especially if they hired more people during Covid times.

How about you? Where do you prefer to work? Is your company introducing “RTO”?