The storm in a coffee cup that has been brewing since the appointment of Starbucks’ new CEO in August has threatened to boil over again after staff were told that they could face termination if they fail to comply with the company’s return to office (RTO) policy.
The company caused a stir when it was revealed that incoming chief executive Brian Niccol would not be required to travel into its Seattle headquarters from his California home.
That runs in direct contradiction to Starbucks’ three-day-a-week RTO policy that was adopted at the start of last year; a policy that will now be enforced through a “standardized process” with the most severe of consequences facing staff who breach it.
Coffee To Go?
The coffee giant’s more heavy-handed approach to its RTO policy was reported by Bloomberg News (paywalled), which has seen a memo that was distributed to one of the company’s divisions.
The memo outlined a “standardized process” to working in the office three days per week that could result in “separation” for non-compliant staff.
This just in! View
the top business tech deals for 2024 👨💻
It seems a strange turn of phrase, but the intention is clear – staff who don’t honor the RTO policy could be let go.
A statement from Starbucks in response to the leaked memo confirmed that it is “continuing to support our leaders as they hold their teams accountable to our existing hybrid work policy”.
Waking Up to Smell the Coffee
It’s been a something of a rocky road for the company to reach this point, having initially joined the long list of companies that have ended fully remote work in January 2023.
Then-CEO Howard Schultz spoke of the need to “rebuild” following the impact of the COVID pandemic as he announced the three-day-per-week RTO mandate.
But the company attracted criticism earlier in the year when incoming boss Brian Niccol negotiated a working arrangement whereby he would remain living in Newport Beach with no obligation to the Seattle HQ. And when he did, his contract said, he would be permitted to travel on the company aircraft.
Only last month Niccol sought to quell his workers’ unrest by intimating that he would take a relaxed approach to the RTO Policy. “You need to figure out where you need to be to get your job done, then do that,” he told an internal forum.
But that has been superseded by the emergence of this new memo, with more stringent enforcement set to commence in January.
In or Out?
Despite the pandemic officially being declared over by the World Health Organization almost 18 months ago, some of the planet’s biggest companies are still working out the best route to take to returning to work.
The likes of Amazon, Dell and Ubisoft have been infamously stark in their absolutist approach to RTO mandates. And Elon Musk has required his staff to return to the office as soon as he was legally able to.
Others, such as Microsoft, have opted not to enforce five-day RTO policies. But it is increasingly looking like an outlier and, as revealed by a recent KPMG survey, around 80% of CEOs predict a full return to office in within the next three years.
