Starbucks remote workers ordered to return to office 4 days a week
- - - Starbucks remote workers ordered to return to office 4 days a week
Jessica Guynn, USA TODAY July 15, 2025 at 12:36 AM
Remote workers will have to return to the office at least four days a week – up from three – or take a buyout as CEO Brian Niccol works to turnaround the coffee chain’s prolonged sales slump.
The new requirement will start in October, Niccol said Monday.
Starbucks is offering employees who decide to leave the company a one-time voluntary exit program that includes a cash payment.
“We are reestablishing our in-office culture because we do our best work when we’re together,” Niccol said in a statement. “We share ideas more effectively, creatively solve hard problems, and move much faster. Being in person also helps us build and strengthen our culture. As we work to turn the business around, all these things matter more than ever.”
A Starbucks store sign is seen in New York City, U.S., February 25, 2025.
Many office workers got hooked on remote work as the COVID-19 pandemic shut down offices across America.
Five years later, a growing number of employers from Amazon to JPMorgan Chase are winding back the clock on remote work.
Starbucks began requiring employees to return to the office at least three days a week in 2023. Now it will also require all corporate people managers working remotely to relocate to Seattle or Toronto within 12 months.
Across industries, the moves have not always been popular with employees. Three-quarters of employed adults who have a job that can be done from home are working remotely at least some of the time, according to a recent Pew Research Center survey. If their employer no longer allowed them that flexibility, nearly half said they would be unlikely to stay on.
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Also unpopular is the perception of a double standard for executives. Some top executives run their businesses from the comfort of their home office hundreds or even thousands of miles from the corporate headquarters.
Niccol is Starbucks’ highest-profile remote worker. Last year, the company lured him from Chipotle Mexican Grill with a deal that permits him to commute 1,600 miles from his Newport Beach, California, home to the company’s Seattle headquarters on the company’s private jet and on its dime.
Starbucks says Niccol now has an office and a residence in Seattle.
Niccol’s arrangement attracted a lot of media attention, “putting him in an uncomfortable position,” said Stanford University economics professor Nick Bloom, who studies remote work.
“I suspect part of this move is also for Niccol to reestablish himself as the tough in-person leader and move away from being seen as some kind of work-from-home champion.”
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Starbucks tells remote workers to return to office 4 days
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