NBCUniversal Enacts 4-Day In-Office Mandate, Offers Severance For Workers Who Don't Comply

Live from New York... it's another return-to-office mandate. 

Media giant NBCUniversal has told employees they must come into the office Monday through Thursday starting in January or accept a severance package, Business Insider reported. The move is the latest in a stream of major office users requiring in-person attendance, helping support the struggling commercial property sector. 

NBCU's severance offer gives employees eight weeks of base salary, three months of healthcare coverage and their full bonus if they work through Dec. 31 and help transition their responsibilities to others, according to a memo obtained by BI. The offer is available for all employees at the vice president level or below in the U.S. and UK.

The parent company of the NBC broadcast network, Universal Studios and streaming service Peacock, NBCU has offices around the world and is headquartered in Rockefeller Center. It leases 972K SF at the complex, owned by Tishman Speyer. 

NBCU Chief Operating Officer Adam Miller told employees in a memo that “it has become increasingly clear that we are better when we are together.”

“As we have all experienced, in-person work and collaboration spark innovation, promote creativity, and build stronger connections,” he wrote in the memo, according to BI.

The company's return-to-office mandate comes just days after competing media giant Paramount told employees they would be required to come in five days a week starting in January. That missive was handed down shortly after Paramount was sold to Skydance Media and taken over by new CEO David Ellison, the son of Oracle CEO Larry Ellison, the newly minted richest person in the world.

Those moves follow a series of other major companies that have required more frequent office attendance. A report from JLL in July found that 54% of employees at Fortune 500 companies are now under return-to-office mandates. JPMorgan Chase and Amazon were two of the largest firms that implemented full-time office mandates earlier this year. 

President Donald Trump has also pushed federal employees back to the office, signing an executive order in January telling agency heads to terminate remote work arrangements and bring employees in five days a week as soon as possible.