#return-to-office

#return-to-office

Late last month, reports surfaced that Microsoft Teams would add a new feature in December of this year, which would pinpoint the location of any employee using the company's Wi-Fi. For example, if your Chicago-based manager has the expectation that you work in the New York office four days a week, but you only make it to the office two days a week, your boss will soon know.

Across KPMG's offices nationwide, employees say they prefer round tables. So with that feedback and more in mind, the Big Four consulting firm designed and opened a new, 450,000-square-foot office at Two Manhattan West in Manhattan's Hudson Yards neighborhood. The firm hopes the gleaming new headquarters will not only reassert its presence in New York City but also tempt its more than 5,000 employees in New York back to the office more often.

It may sound strange, but it's true, and a harbinger of a new détente between workers and employers. Five years after the pandemic, denizens of the white collar sector have been slowly but definitively strong-armed into returning to the office. An increasing number of companies have tightened their flexible work policies, which have idled commercial real estate across the country, and driven a number of business districts to the brink of desolation.

Since announcing the policy, Ford has sent some employees emails telling them that they are not badging in enough and warning that they could face termination if they do not improve their attendance, three current and former Ford employees told Business Insider. Two said they had received these emails despite complying with updated office attendance policies and having previous work-from-home arrangements signed off by their managers.

In 2020, Lisa was earning roughly $110,000 a year in a remote, corporate manufacturing role when she received an offer for a hybrid job that paid about $150,000. After talking it over with her husband, she landed on an unconventional solution: Take the new job - and keep the old one, too. For 18 months, Lisa secretly worked two full-time roles, earning roughly $250,000 in 2021 and averaging 40 to 50 hours a week across both jobs.

A new daily talk show, "Florida Matters: Live & Local," has debuted on WUSF 89.7. For more than two decades, "Florida Matters" brought newsmakers and others to your radio for a half-hour each week. Well, now an hour of "Live & Local" will air Monday through Thursday at noon. In addition to interviewing studio guests, host Matthew Peddie will take calls and emails so you can be part of the discussion.

I don't think I've talked to anybody who has had anything positive to say in response to this change of policy,

This year, in-office attendance reached its highest level since 2020, with 72% of US companies reaching their RTO goals, up from 61% in 2024, data from real estate group CBRE found. (At the same time, the rate of companies tracking in-office attendance hit 69%, up from 45% the year prior.) And some employers, most recently Microsoft and NBCUniversal, have also upped their RTO requirements, the Washington Post reported.