Meta asks office workers to return to in-person work

By Samantha Delouya, CNN

(CNN) — Meta is the latest tech company to call its workers back to the office, more than three years after the COVID-19 pandemic first compelled many companies to adopt flexible work-from-home policies.

The internet giant — which owns Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp — has asked that employees currently assigned to an office return to in-person work three days a week starting September 5.

Meta employees who are designated as remote workers will be allowed to keep their remote status.

In a statement to CNN, a Meta spokesperson said the company’s updated policy was not set in stone.

“We’re committed to distributed work, and we’re confident people can make a meaningful impact both from the office and at home. We’re also committed to continuously refining our model to foster the collaboration, relationships, and culture necessary for employees to do their best work.”

Meta’s CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, hinted at the policy change in a March blog post. In the post, Zuckerberg shared that the company’s internal analysis showed that engineers who joined Meta in-person performed better on average than those who joined remotely.

“This requires further study, but our hypothesis is that it is still easier to build trust in person and that those relationships help us work more effectively,” he wrote.

Meta joins a wave of large corporations that have asked workers to return to in-person work for at least a few days per week this year.

Amazon’s updated policy requiring staff to work in an office three days per week went into effect on May 1, while Disney earlier this year began requiring workers to show up in person four days per week.

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