More Remote Workers Facing Threats, Layoffs As Big Companies Clamp Down

Bank of America is the latest firm to tell its army of workers that if they don’t return to the office at least three times a week, they could face increasing consequences.

The nation's second-largest bank, which has roughly 170,000 U.S. employees, sent "letters of education" to some staff about complying with the company's in-office mandates that have been in effect for more than a year, the Financial Times reported.

The letters were sent to employees who have failed to meet the office work requirements, known as Workplace Excellence Guidelines, despite numerous reminders to do so, according to FT.

"Failure to follow the workplace excellence expectations applicable to your role within two weeks of the date of this notification may result in further disciplinary action,” FT reported. A Bank of America spokesperson confirmed the veracity of the letters to FT.

The move comes as other corporate giants begin to crack down on work-from-home stragglers. In January, the parent company of WebMD received some social media blowback after it issued a two-minute video telling employees that executives were now serious about employees reporting back to the office to the tune of “Iko Iko.”

“We aren’t asking or negotiating at this point. We’re informing,” Internet Brands CEO Bob Brisco says during the video.

Online retailer Wayfair executives told workers earlier this week that those with remote roles were more likely to have been part of the 1,650-employee layoffs announced a week earlier, the Wall Street Journal reported.

Disney, Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan, Google, Meta and Starbucks have all revised work-from-home policies over the past year, requiring employees to report at least three days a week to the office.

Despite that, some employees continue to push back against mandates. Some 78% of employees 16 years and older worked entirely in the office as of December 2023, down from 81% a year before, according to a U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics study reported by the Washington Post. 

A recent research report from the Katz Graduate School of Business at the University of Pittsburgh also found little evidence to suggest productivity suffered with employees working from home. 

Examining a sample of 457 firms on the S&P 500 each quarter between June 2019 and January 2023, the study authors found that in-person work mandates made no difference to financial performance, the Washington Post reported. And pushing employees back to the office will likely only make them less productive and more likely to search for a new job, Katz Associate Professor and co-author Mark Ma said.

“We will not get back to the time when as many people will be happy working from the office the way they were before the pandemic,” Ma told the Post.