is a senior editor and author of Notepad , who has been covering all things Microsoft, PC, and tech for over 20 years.
Microsoft originally encouraged its employees to work from home amid the coronavirus outbreak in 2020. This new flexible working arrangement then became an official “hybrid workplace” policy several months after the pandemic began, allowing managers to approve permanent remote work. Now that the pandemic has settled into endemicity, Microsoft wants employees to return to the office. And if some quit in response, well, that’s probably exactly what Microsoft is expecting.
Much like Amazon or Google before it, Microsoft is preparing a mandatory return-to-office policy, according to sources familiar with the company’s plans. Rumors of the return-to-office policy first emerged a few weeks ago internally at Microsoft, leading to plenty of speculation among employees. A recent Experiences + Devices all-hands call revealed that Microsoft’s senior leadership team is working on “some guidance” that will be announced to employees in the coming weeks.
I understand that Microsoft is preparing to announce a mandatory return to office of three days a week. The policy will apply to those who live within 50 miles of Microsoft’s Redmond campus, and some teams at Microsoft may even return for four or five days. Those individual team decisions will be made by executive vice presidents, and I understand that employees will also be able to apply for exceptions.
More than half of Microsoft’s 228,000 employees are in the US, and most of that 125,000 are located near the company’s Redmond campus just outside of Seattle, so this policy will affect a lot of Microsoft employees. Business Insider first reported the rumors of a return-to-office policy last week, and I understand it will be announced in September and then implemented in late January.
On that same Experiences + Devices all-hands call, Microsoft said that employees who spend three or four days in the office have higher Thriving Scores — a metric that measures employee well-being. Microsoft has been increasingly integrating the Thrive Global tool into Microsoft Teams, and using it to gauge how employees are feeling through questionnaires.
Scott Guthrie, executive vice president of Microsoft’s cloud and AI group, told employees last year that the company wasn’t changing its return-to-office policy unless productivity dropped. Microsoft has continued to post impressive earnings results over the past five years, even driving the company to a $3 trillion market cap recently — so productivity clearly hasn’t been a huge issue.
I’ve spoken to dozens of Microsoft employees in recent weeks about the upcoming return-to-office policy, and there’s a real split of opinion on it. Some employees are concerned about a mandatory return, especially given the local road traffic problems and the amount of time lost in travel.
Others are worried about Microsoft not having enough space for everyone to return at the same time, despite the company’s $5 billion headquarters expansion. Microsoft has vacated lots of spaces in Bellevue in recent years, including the 27-story City Center building, the two Bravern office towers, and the Advanta campus. It has also given up space in Redmond, in efforts to cut the costs associated with office space that isn’t being used as regularly anymore.
Microsoft’s campus renovation includes 17 new buildings to replace 12 old buildings and hold 8,000 additional employees. Seven buildings are now open, with others under construction or on hold. It’s still not clear when Microsoft will complete its sprawling campus overhaul, as the company hasn’t put a firm end date on construction.
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