- American telecom giant AT&T is asking all of its staff to work in the office five days a week, after 18,000 managers returned last year. It follows a similar move from Amazon CEO Andy Jassy.
The slow march of the return to office has taken another step forward, with telecom giant AT&T informing staff they must be back at their desks five days a week starting in January.
It marks a change from the company’s previous stance, which required employees to be in the office three days a week.
The move across all business ranks follows a push on managers last year. In the company’s 2024 proxy statement, AT&T wrote that it had brought 18,000 management staff back to “core” office hubs.
This was a change to the business’s office structure prior to the pandemic. Despite working in 50 states across the U.S., CEO John Stankey told Bloomberg Radio at the time that the company was consolidating down to nine locations.
This included two main hubs in Dallas—its headquarters—and Atlanta, as well as Los Angeles, Seattle, Washington, San Ramon, California, St. Louis and two New Jersey locations in Middletown and Bedminster.
The company wrote in its proxy statement that its reasoning was to “drive collaboration, innovation, and better position us for long-term success.”
And staff who might be looking for some flexibility from the C-suite in its latest move might be disappointed.
When discussing the push to get managers back to their desks last year, Stankey said 85% of them already lived near one of the offices.
The remaining 15%, he said, will have to “make decisions that are appropriate to their lives.”
“If they want to be a part of building a great culture and environment, they’ll come along on these adjustments and changes,” Stankey said in May 2023. “Others may decide, given the station of life they are in, that they want to move in a different direction.”
When announcing the wider push to get colleagues back in-person, AT&T—which has a market cap of $164 billion—said the vast majority had continued to work in the office even during the pandemic.
“The majority of our employees and leaders never stopped working on location for the full work week—including during the pandemic,” a spokesperson told Fortune.
The brusque stance on RTO comes as other major companies push for similar in-office attendance.
In September, Amazon CEO Andy Jassy told staff they will need to be back in the office full-time, seemingly pushing 73% of his colleagues to consider quitting over the move.
Anonymous job review site Blind polled 2,585 verified Amazon professionals the day after Jassy made the announcement, with more than nine in ten employees saying they were “dissatisfied” with the policy.
Where will everyone sit?
Given the consolidation of AT&T’s offices, staffers might reasonably ask where they’re going to sit.
AT&T insists they’ve got it under control, adding to Fortune: “We always adapt our workforce model to drive collaboration and innovation to deliver the best support for our customers.
“As we continue to evolve our model, we are enhancing our facilities and workspaces, adapting our benefits programs, and incorporating best practices to ensure our employees are best equipped to serve our customers.”
Other businesses have also been caught out in a push for efficiency, reducing office space before demanding staffers return.
Google, for example, asked staff to share desks with an office buddy and alternate days to come in.
For example, one half of a desk pair might come in Mondays and Wednesdays, while the other comes in Tuesdays and Thursdays.
Googlers were encouraged to “have conversations about how they will or will not decorate the space, store personal items, and tidiness expectations.”
