Meta Platforms calls employees back to office … or else

Meta Platforms to employees: report to the office or leave.

The Menlo Park-based parent of Facebook ordered all employees with company cubicles to return to its headquarters at 1 Hacker Way and other Meta offices – or they’d be fired, the Silicon Valley Business Journal reported, citing a report from Insider.

The return-to-office policy requires all workers assigned to an office to come in three days a week or participate in “in-person work activities” an equal amount of time, Lori Goler, Meta’s human resources chief, said on an internal message board.

Company managers will keep tabs on employees to see if they adhere to the rules, Goler said. Failing to do so would be grounds for dismissal.

“Repeated violations may result in disciplinary action, up to and including a performance rating drop and, ultimately, termination if not addressed,” Goler told employees.

At the dawn of the pandemic, Meta and other tech firms across the Bay Area led a shift to remote work, with most employees working from home. 

The remote work policies, enacted by organizations ranging from private law firms to public agencies, left downtowns from San Francisco to Oakland with a third of their offices empty. It also devalued office buildings and caused some landlords, upside down on their mortgages, to surrender the properties to lenders.

In Silicon Valley, office vacancy rose to 17 percent in June. In some towns, such as Menlo Park and Mountain View, the rate last spring climbed past 20 percent, according to CoStar. Others pegged the overall vacancy rate at 23 percent.

Meta, like Mountain View-based Alphabet, parent of Google, and other companies have begun to reverse the trend with hybrid work policies. But it may take time.

At Meta, the directive to appear in the office won’t apply to employees whom Meta has approved for full-time, remote work, Goler said. Instead, those workers shouldn’t come into the office too often, no more than four days every two months.

That limitation will “help teams build predictable schedules and more consistent collaboration practices,” Goler said. “Remote work is for people who are committed to working from home, and isn’t intended for those who want to spend regular time in the office.”

— Dana Bartholomew

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