Titanium

For Motor Co. has wielded the stick over the carrot in its efforts to get employees to return to the office

The Detroit-based automaker told employees to show up in the office four days a week starting last month or face possible “discipline up to and including termination,” according to emails reviewed by Business Insider.

This is Ford’s latest updated return-to-office mandate. Many of the automaker’s Michigan-based teams have been reporting to the office three days a week since late 2024, according to Business Insider, who interviewed a collection of anonymous current and former employees.

Ford is the latest example of companies attempting to clamp down on employees returning to the office more often. Firms like Starbucks, Meta, Google and Salesforce have all pushed for more in-office time mandates for employees this year, according to Inc.

And some companies are using threats of punishment to compel employees back to the office. Executives with Tanium, a $9B cybersecurity firm, told employees they were at risk of losing out on receiving shares of the company as part of their compensation, Business Insider reported Wednesday.

The back-to-office push has some firms also reclaiming formerly empty office space to make way for returning employees. Microsoft – which initiated a three-day-a-week RTO policy in September – has pulled a 480K SF office sublease from the market at its Millennium Corporate Park in Redmond, Washington, and is in talks to extend its tenancy at another office park in Redmond in preparation for the mandates’ taking effect in February, the Puget Sound Business Journal reported.

RTO mandates have helped to push more employee visits to the office over the summer, with foot traffic in office buildings at around 80% of pre-pandemic levels, Placer.ai reported.

But corporate RTO efforts have met resistance along the way.

Business Insider reported that Ford’s threats of termination were sent to some employees who were already complying with the mandates. Homer Isaac, a human resources director within Ford’s Enterprise Technology division, told employees in an all-hands meeting on Sept. 9 that some employees informed of the violation were “caught up in a lot of that noise” and shouldn’t be concerned about losing their jobs, Business Insider reported, citing an internal recording of the meeting.

And other corporate RTO mandates have lagged because of employee resistance, despite surveillance, and the need for more office space to house a greater number of employees at a single time, The HR Digest reported last month.

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