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Starbucks has warned its corporate staff that violating its three-days-a-week in-office policy could result in being fired.
First reported by Bloomberg News Monday, an internal message was distributed to the company, setting out Starbucks’ stricter stance on in-office work effective January 2025.
“We are continuing to support our leaders as they hold their teams accountable to our existing hybrid work policy,” the return-to-office (RTO) memo stated.
Starbucks is also adjusting the terms of its three-day in-office policy as of January 2025, with staff no longer mandated to come into the office on a Tuesday—a previous stipulation of the RTO policy.
What “accountability process” is Starbucks threatening?
The Wall Street Journal shared further details on the message on Tuesday, revealing that employees will face an “accountability process” taking effect as of next year.
Employees who do not comply with the policy risk severe consequences “up to, and including, separation,” the memo said.
Starbucks’ staff unsure about how seriously to take the policy have also had warnings from other US-based employers recently.
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Last week, news broke that Publicis Media fired close to 100 employees from its US workforce for consistently ignoring the company’s three-day RTO policy.
“We have been clear and consistent about our policy that employees work from the office at least three days a week, an expectation that is being met and exceeded by the majority of our talent,” a spokesperson for Publicis Media US stated.
Starbucks CEO: “This is not a game of tracking. This is a game of winning”
New CEO David Niccol has been vocal about the need for in-person office work, though stopped short of increasing the number of days employees are expected to be in the office.
“My point of view is we should be together as much as possible,” he said during an address to staff in September, adding that employees should also use their autonomy. “You need to figure out where you need to be to get your job done, then do that… We’re all adults here.”
At the time, the former Chipotle CEO downplayed the idea that Starbucks would monitor the time employees spent in office.
“This is not a game of tracking. This is a game of winning,” he said. But the executive caveated that the success of the coffee chain is what matters most.
“I care about seeing everybody here succeed, and if success requires us being together more often than not, let’s be together more often.”
During his tenure at Chipotle, Niccol introduced a four-day in-office mandate for staff, prompting fears from some Starbucks staff that their flexibility to work from home may be further reduced.
Starbucks’ hybrid working policy was introduced in 2023 by then-CEO Howard Schultz as “a shift designed to preserve the flexibility and productivity that you’ve built through your work-at-home rituals while, at the same time, bringing us together in a synchronized way for the in-person work that’s vital for our future success."
Are RTO mandates invoking employee criticism and exits?
Following a spate of high-profile hybrid working policy changes, with companies like Amazon, Salesforce, and Dell calling staff back to the office full-time, workers across the US have criticized RTO mandates, arguing reduced flexibility and choice over when, how, and where they work is a step back.
Niccol and Starbucks have also come under fire after it was revealed the CEO would “exceed the hybrid work guidelines and workplace expectations we have for all partners,” despite living 1,000 miles away from the office.
However, Starbucks is sticking with its policy and has been clear about what is expected of employees, even if this means staff who do not comply with the policy are forced to ‘separate’ from the business.
Other companies have been similarly bullish. Matt Garman, CEO of Amazon Web Services – subject to Amazon’s wider five-days-per-week in-office mandate – recently told employees during a company meeting: “If there are people who just don’t work well in that environment and don’t want to, that’s OK, there are other companies around.”
A survey of 2,585 Amazon employees conducted by Blind recently revealed that 73% were contemplating a job switch due to the new RTO mandate.
Meanwhile, other remote-first organizations have suggested they are benefitting from an influx of talent. “It opens up new opportunities to engage with the best candidates… We’ve seen top talent around the globe increasingly prioritizing remote work,” said Christy Lake, Chief People Officer at Twilio, speaking to HR Grapevine in an interview arriving October 31.
