COMP NEWS – Meta, formerly known as Facebook, has updated its return-to-office policy with a strict warning – employees who don’t come into the office 3 days a week risk losing their job.

Meta is committing to its return-to-office mandate, telling employees that they will be monitored by management to make sure they comply and that they may lose their jobs if they don’t.

The company, formerly known as Facebook, on Thursday afternoon updated employees on its guidance for an RTO policy announced in June. Lori Goler, Meta’s head of human resources, wrote in a post to Workplace, the company’s internal forum, that all employees “assigned to an office” would be required to work from that office or otherwise participate in in-person work at least three days a week. Employees already approved for fully remote work do not have to comply with the mandate.

“Accountability will be central to making this fair and effective,” Goler wrote.

Managers at Meta will be responsible for following up with workers on a monthly basis, making sure they are complying with the policy. Workers may be disciplined or even lose their jobs if they repeatedly fail to comply.

Workers who have positive performance reviews over an 18-month span can apply for an exemption to work fully remote.

Under the new policy, most new employees, save for those hired for rare fully remote roles, will be required to work in the office. After 18 months, and with positive performance reviews, workers can apply to be fully remote. Being fully remote means Meta will not maintain desk space for such workers, who should not come to an office “more than 4 days every 2 months,” Goler’s memo said,

While Meta still allows some remote work, the overall shift away from it is a major departure from the pro-remote-work stance it adopted early on in the pandemic. In an interview discussing Meta’s long-term strategy on “The Tim Ferriss Show” in March 2022, Zuckerberg said on the podcast that he hoped to have “50% or more of the company” working “distributed and working remotely” by the end of the decade. And Meta’s metaverse was supposed to further usher in an era of remote-work options.

To read more about Meta’s return-to-office mandate, click here.

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