Which companies are enforcing five-day office returns?

In 2024, several large companies, including Amazon, announced strict return-to-office mandates. This led some to speculate that in 2025 more companies would end their remote- or hybrid-working arrangements, many of which were introduced during the Covid-19 pandemic.

This year, JPMorgan Chase and WPP summoned staff back to the office. Although their CEOs argued that in-person working can help improve productivity, innovation and mentoring, the decisions were met with pushback from staff. 

JPMorgan shut down an internal forum, which the bank’s employees were using to criticise the new policy. An online petition calling for WPP’s chief executive to reverse the firm’s four-day in-office mandate has received more than 18,000 signatures.

Despite the backlash, 83% of CEOs expect a full return to office in the next three years, according to a KPMG survey. Here are some of the companies that are already enforcing this change.

Amazon

Last year, Amazon became the largest employer yet to issue a five-day RTO mandate. The new workplace policy came into force from January 2025 and is part of a wider plan to “strengthen” Amazon’s culture. 

Andy Jassy, the chief executive, broke the news to staff in September. In a company-wide message, Jassy argued that in-person work brings significant advantages for company culture, collaboration and invention.

However, the policy has already hit several stumbling blocks. Last month, Bloomberg reported that Amazon is struggling to find sufficient desk space for staff in several cities where it has offices, forcing the tech company to delay the start date for its office return by up to four months. 

Meanwhile, some of Amazon’s European offices are enforcing the rules less strictly, according to Business Insider. Flexible working is still an option for many Amazon employees in the Netherlands and the UK, for instance.

AT&T

AT&T, a US telecoms provider, has required all staff to work on-site five days a week since January 2025. It previously managed a hybrid-working policy.

Barclays

In June 2024, Barclays announced that thousands of employees in its investment-banking units must spend five days a week either in the office or visiting clients. However, Cathal Deasy and Taylor Wright, the firm’s global co-heads of investment banking, reassured staff that occasional flexible working would still be permitted.

According to a report by Bloomberg, Barclays’ policy shift was necessitated by a regulatory change at the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA), a private regulatory body based in the US. In June 2024, FINRA reinstated pre-pandemic workplace-monitoring rules, which primarily impact investment-banking staff working on Wall Street.

Boots

Boots’ office-based staff have been required to commute into work five days a week since September 2024. 

Citigroup

Most of Citigroup’s 240,000 employees can still work in a hybrid fashion, but 600 of its US-based workers must report to the office five days per week. This change too was made in response to FINRA’s reinstatement of workplace-monitoring rules.

However, Citigroup recently unveiled plans to invest £1bn in renovating its Canary Wharf offices in London, which may be a sign that further return-to-office mandates are coming.

Dell

Dell, a technology company, implemented a full-time return-to-office mandate for its sales staff at the end of September 2023. Given the sales floor’s “unique environment” and “high-energy” culture, the office is the where sales members are most likely to perform at the highest level. So say the firm’s executives.

However, the sudden implementation of the policy left some in the sales team struggling to find childcare, Business Insider reported.

Disney

Disney operates a four-day in-office policy. The entertainment giant’s CEO, Bob Iger, implemented the new requirement in March 2023. The decision was met with immediate pushback from staff, 2,300 of whom signed a petition asking him to reconsider.

Goldman Sachs

Goldman Sachs’ CEO, David Solomon, has been one of the most ardent supporters of in-office work. He has even described homeworking as an “aberration”. 

The bank first introduced a return-to-office mandate in February 2022, but felt the need to reiterate the requirement to staff only a year later owing to lower-than-expected adherence to the new rules. 

HSBC 

At HSBC, 530 New York-based staff are now required to come into the office five days a week. The majority of its workforce still operates under a three-day in-office requirement, which was first instated in 2023. 

With fewer people working in its London office full-time, the bank has announced plans to move from Canary Wharf to a smaller office in St Pauls, marking a 40% reduction in its London office space.

JD Sports

JD Sports is another company operating under a four-day in-office policy. Staff in the sportswear retailer’s UK head office were required to return to the office from May of last year, while global staff were given until July. 

JPMorgan Chase

JPMorgan Chase, a US bank, will introduce a full-time in-office requirement for all of its 316,000 global employees from March. 

Its CEO, Jamie Dimon, announced the change on 10 January in an internal memo to staff in which he said the benefits of working together in person are “substantial and irreplaceable”. 

Previously, only half of JPMorgan’s employees were required to come into the office five days a week, while the rest worked in a hybrid arrangement. 

Laing O’Rourke

Staff at Laing O’Rourke, a construction company, have been required to attend the office five days a week since April 2024. The company claims that a drop in staff engagement and poor financial performance in 2023 necessitated the change.

Manchester United

In May, staff at Manchester United Football Club were ordered by its part-owner, Sir Jim Ratcliffe, to return to the office or quit. 

The ultimatum followed complaints from Ratcliffe about the untidy state of the office and low email traffic from staff who worked from home on Fridays.

However, the football club has struggled at times to implement its return-to-office plan. For example, thanks to a lack of desk space, the club has been forced to convert some hospitality suites into temporary offices, which brought additional costs to the organisation.

Novo Nordisk

The pharmaceutical giant behind the weight-loss drugs Ozempic and Wegovy is one of the latest members of the RTO-mandate club. In a move dogged with suspicion, Novo Nodirsk announced in early September, mere days after cutting 9,000 jobs, that staff would be expected to attend the office five days a week. Cynics have speculated that this move is a ploy to reduce headcount further, without having to pay redundancy, pushing those unwilling to work in the office full time to quit. 

This move is one of many changes for Novo Nordisk, after a new CEO was brought in to help the organisation re-establish its dominance in the market. The firm’s market capitalisation reached $640bn (£472bn) in mid-2024, but is now just $242bn (£179bn). Leaders may be hoping that reducing costs through staff attrition will help the pharmaceutical company get back on track.

Paramount

In early September, Paramount announced that all employees will be required to work from the office five days a week from 5 Jan 2026. This move comes following the organisation’s $8.4bn (£6.2bn) merger with Skydance and a report by Variety that the TV network planned to cut between 2,000 and 3,000 jobs by early November. 

The RTO mandate will be rolled out in two phases. The first, from January, applies only to employees at the network’s Los Angeles and New York offices. The second phase will involve RTO plans for staff in other offices or any employee initially hired on a fully remote basis. Between 4 September (when the move was announced) and 15 September, anyone who cannot – or will not – return to the office full-time will be offered a severance package. 

In the memo announcing the mandate, David Ellison, the chief executive, said: “I believe that in-person collaboration is absolutely vital to building and strengthening our culture and driving the success of our business. We need to all be rowing in the same direction. And especially when you’re dealing with a creative business like ours, that begins with being together in person.”

Rockstar

Rockstar, the video game development company behind the Grand Theft Auto and Red Dead Redemption franchises, ordered workers back to the office five days per week from April 2024.

Prior to the change, office attendance was required on three days a week. Rockstar’s RTO mandate was criticised by the British IWGB Game Workers Union, which described it as “reckless”.

Salesforce

Despite previously being a proponent of flexible working, Marc Benioff, chief executive at Salesforce, revised the company’s workplace rules in 2023. 

The policy requires some staff to come into the office four to five days per week, but the rules vary across teams and roles. Non-customer-facing roles are allowed greater flexibility. Engineers, for example, are required to come into the office 10 days per quarter.

Tesla

THG

THG, a Manchester-based ecommerce company, announced its five-day office return in July 2024. The policy has been in effect since August. The workplace change was announced alongside 171 redundancies across various departments. 

The Washington Post

Hot on the heels of Amazon’s five-day RTO announcement, The Washington Post stated it would follow suit. The publisher, which is owned by Jeff Bezos, announced in November 2024 that staffers would be expected to be in the office full-time from June 2025. 

For employees who refused, the consequences were clear, according to an internal Q&A doc shared with staff. “If an employee decides they do not wish to return to work at The Post on a five-day-a-week office schedule, we understand and will accept their resignation.”

WPP 

WPP, an advertising agency, faced significant staff backlash after it announced a four-day return to office earlier this month. A petition on change.org asking Mark Read, the CEO, to reconsider the decision has gained more than 17,000 signatures.

Speaking to Sky News, one WPP employee said: “It is difficult enough across the industry to find and retain talent and this mandate will only make it harder.”

X

X, another of Musk’s companies, has a similar workplace policy to Tesla; staff are required to be in the office at least 40 hours per week. The change was made shortly after his purchase of the social media site – then called Twitter – in 2022.

In 2023, a complaint was made to the National Labor Relations Board, claiming the company illegally fired an employee who protested its return-to-office policy.

In 2024, several large companies, including Amazon, announced strict return-to-office mandates. This led some to speculate that in 2025 more companies would end their remote- or hybrid-working arrangements, many of which were introduced during the Covid-19 pandemic.

This year, JPMorgan Chase and WPP summoned staff back to the office. Although their CEOs argued that in-person working can help improve productivity, innovation and mentoring, the decisions were met with pushback from staff. 

JPMorgan shut down an internal forum, which the bank’s employees were using to criticise the new policy. An online petition calling for WPP’s chief executive to reverse the firm’s four-day in-office mandate has received more than 18,000 signatures.