At&t And Sweetgreen Are Following Amazon's Lead With Stricter Return-to-office Mandates — Though Amazon's Plan Has Hit A Snag

While Amazon is delaying its January 2 return-to-office (RTO) instruction for thousands of labour because of a deficiency of agency space, 2 different companies are pursuing nan tech giant's lead and implementing strict back-to-the-office mandates.

AT&T and Sweetgreen are telling non-frontline unit to recreation into nan agency overmuch often successful nan caller year, per Bloomberg.

Both companies presently require labour to beryllium successful nan agency 3 days per week.

Related: Dell's Sudden 5-Day Return-to-Office Order Leaves Parents Scrambling to Find Childcare

AT&T wants overmuch U.S. portion successful nan agency each 5 workdays while Sweetgreen is pushing for 4 days per week, according to nan report.

Sweetgreen co-founder and CEO Jonathan Neman told Bloomberg that Amazon's stricter RTO argumentation paved nan measurement for Sweetgreen to inquire its workers to recreation successful overmuch often, too.

"That was nan ample turning constituent wherever everyone's like: 'Oh, they're doing it, now we tin do it,'" Neman said.

Related: Hybrid Workers Were Put to nan Test Against Fully In-Office Employees — Here's Who Came Out On Top

What Is Amazon's New RTO Policy?

Amazon's caller RTO argumentation requires each labour backmost to nan agency for nan afloat five-day workweek starting successful January. And though different companies personification been pursuing Amazon's lead, nan feedback from labour has not been positive.

After nan news was announced successful September, 73% of Amazon's patient workforce said they were looking for a caller job. Then, successful October, Amazon Web Services CEO Matt Garman told portion who didn't want to return to nan agency nan afloat 5 days location were "other companies around." That led complete 500 Amazon labour to mobility a missive protesting his comments.

Despite nan pushback, Amazon has persisted pinch its policy.

Amazon CEO Andy Jassy said past period that nan move to afloat return to nan agency was not a costs play, but was alternatively motivated by nan petition to fortify Amazon's culture.

Related: Google Says It Won't Follow Amazon's Lead With a Return-to-Office Mandate — Yet

Amazon CEO Andy Jassy. Photo by Rodin Eckenroth/WireImage

Meanwhile, Amazon's RTO argumentation whitethorn personification deed a snag — reports emerged earlier this week that location is simply not tin agency abstraction to accommodate each of nan portion giant's 350,000 patient employees.

Amazon reportedly told thousands of patient workers surviving successful astatine slightest 7 cities, including Austin, Texas, and Phoenix, Arizona, that they will not beryllium required to return to nan agency until arsenic precocious arsenic April.

Still, an Amazon spokesperson told Bloomberg that "the immense majority" of Amazon's patient workforce will beryllium backmost astatine their desks starting January 2.

Related: Remote Walmart Employees Question Return-to-Office Policy, Some Opt to Quit Instead

Does a strict return-to-office argumentation lead to labour quitting?

A caller study recovered a noticeable departure successful labour aft companies implemented stricter RTO policies.

Earlier this month, researchers astatine nan University of Pittsburg published a study successful nan Social Science Research Network to find really RTO mandates effect worker turnover. The researchers examined LinkedIn employment histories of complete 3 cardinal tech and finance workers and recovered location was a 14% summation successful labour quitting aft companies implemented RTO policies.

"Notably, we find that female labour are overmuch apt to clip disconnected aft RTO mandates," nan 40-page study reads.

RTO too affected really quickly companies were tin to prosecute a replacement. The study recovered that it took a diligent 23% longer connected mean to tin a business vacancy aft implementing a strict RTO policy.