Starbucks CEO Requires Corporate Employees To Return To Office At Least 3 Days A Week

Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz is mandating workers to come back to corporate offices at least three days a week in an effort to boost camaraderie and productivity.

The coffee retailer is the latest in a wave of companies that have begun enforcing stricter hybrid work models.

Starting Jan. 30, employees in commuting distance from Starbucks' corporate offices will be required to come in on Tuesdays and Wednesdays, Schultz wrote in a memo Wednesday, giving individual teams the ability to choose the third day.

The policy applies to workers at the company's regional offices and workers in proximity to the Starbucks Support Center headquarters in Seattle. The SSC is home to 4,500 employees, according to the company's website.

Schultz said Starbucks' work-from-home policy hurt the company's culture, which he said "depends on rituals" like coffee tastings and storytellings that are used to build a sense of team spirit.

"The pandemic was a full-out attack on the ideas that make Starbucks, Starbucks," Schultz said in the memo. "At the SSC and across our regional offices, we had the privilege and the ability to pivot to virtual work. Most of us stopped coming into the office — at first, because of safety, and to protect ourselves and our loved ones."

Schultz had initially requested workers to come into the office one to two days a week, but he said in the memo that workers had failed to meet those requests prompting the mandate.

Earlier this week, Disney informed workers they will be expected to be back in the workplace four days a week. Other companies including Salesforce, Snap, Twitter and Comcast have all begun requiring in-person workdays.