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Starbucks Tells Workers to Return to the Office or Risk Getting Fired

The coffee chain has expected office employees to come in three days a week. Now it is tightening enforcement

The Starbucks corporate headquarters in Seattle. PHOTO: SCOTT BRAUER/ZUMA PRESS
The Starbucks corporate headquarters in Seattle. PHOTO: SCOTT BRAUER/ZUMA PRESS

 

Starbucks SBUX -0.64%decrease; red down pointing triangle is stepping up efforts to enforce its return-to-office mandate with a warning: Comply with the policy or risk termination.

The company will be instituting an “accountability process” in January to ensure corporate employees comply with requirements to work in the office three days a week, according to an internal message obtained by The Wall Street Journal. The message notes employees may face termination if they do not meet in-office requirements.

Bloomberg previously reported the news Monday. Starbucks said that the company’s expectations for hybrid corporate employees haven’t changed, but it’s reminding workers they must follow them. Starbucks isn’t increasing the number of days employees are back in the office. 

Starbucks’s new chief executive, Brian Niccol, has a hybrid work arrangementhimself. The former CEO of Chipotle Mexican Grill who took the helm of Starbucks in September, Niccol maintains a home in Southern California and commutes to the Seattle office by corporate jet. Starbucks has said Niccol would meet or exceed Starbucks’s in-office mandates; some workers have expressed skepticism of Niccol’s arrangement. 

 

Brian Niccol in 2021 when he was chief executive of Chipotle. Niccol took the helm at Starbucks in September. PHOTO: ROZETTE RAGO FOR WSJ
 
Brian Niccol in 2021 when he was chief executive of Chipotle. Niccol took the helm at Starbucks in September. PHOTO: ROZETTE RAGO FOR WSJ
 

For about two years, the company has required corporate employees to come to the office three days a week. The message sent this week said the company will also no longer be requiring employees in the office on Tuesday—leaving individual leaders to determine the best common day for the teams.

The move comes as a flurry of companies reassess their in-office requirements years after the coronavirus pandemic prompted shutdowns and normalized remote work. Executives have said they seek to rebuild an office culture that existed before the pandemic. 

higher percentage of companies required employees to be in the office five days a week in the third quarter compared with the second quarter, according to Flex Index, which tracks workplace strategies. Meanwhile, U.S. office vacancy rates are stabilizing and investors are showing interest in office properties.

Amazon and other major companies have increased the number of days employees are required to work in the office, reversing pandemic-era policies originally meant to deter the spread of Covid-19 and eventually accepted as a new normal. Dell Technologies, UPS, JPMorgan Chase and Boeing have also required parts of their workforces to return to offices full time.

The stepped-up enforcement at Starbucks comes as Niccol plots an overhaul of the coffee chain. Last week, the company said U.S. same-store sales fell 6% in the latest quarter from the prior year driven by a 10% decline in transactions. The company also missed expectations on earnings and sales for its fourth quarter, which ended Sept. 29, and suspended its financial guidance for fiscal 2025. 

“We need to fundamentally change our strategy so we can get back to growth,” Niccol said last week, adding that the brand needs to review its prices, change marketing and make sure its cafes have the amenities that customers look for in a coffee shop.

Write to Jennifer Calfas at jennifer.calfas@wsj.com and Heather Haddon at heather.haddon@wsj.com

Appeared in the October 30, 2024, print edition as 'Starbucks to Staff: Work in Office or Else'.

 

Author: Jennifer Calfas and Heather Haddon

Source: WSJ:

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