- Microsoft requires Seattle-area employees living within 50 miles to return to office three days weekly
- The policy will later extend to the rest of the US and internationally
- Amy Coleman emphasised in-person work boosts collaboration and innovation
Microsoft Corp. said many employees must soon return to the office three days a week.
“The most meaningful breakthroughs happen when we build on each other's ideas together, in real time,” Amy Coleman, the company's Chief People Officer, wrote in a memo Tuesday.
The requirement will start for workers in the Seattle area who live within 50 miles (80 km) of an office at the end of February, before expanding to the rest of the US and launching internationally, she wrote.
Many of Microsoft's peers in the technology industry are pushing in-person work. Amazon.com Inc., for example, has ordered employees to report to the office five days a week.
More than half of Fortune 100 employees in traditional desk jobs are fully back in the office now, according to a report from real estate firm Jones Lang LaSalle Inc.
The change is “not about reducing headcount,” Coleman wrote. The software giant has fired some 15,000 workers this year as it grapples with the high costs of developing and offering artificial intelligence products.
Rather, the data showed employees working together in-person were more successful, she wrote. “As we build the AI products that will define this era, we need the kind of energy and momentum that comes from smart people working side by side,” Coleman wrote.
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