Meta starts its return-to-office policy mandating three in-person days for some workers

Some workers at Meta Platforms were required to begin reporting for work in person three times per week under the social media company’s office policy that became effective after Labor Day. 

The three-days-per-week rule became effective Tuesday for employees who aren’t fully remote, CNBC reported. For those who don’t have an office assignment, they get to keep working from home. 

“We believe that distributed work will continue to be important in the future, particularly as our technology improves,” a Meta spokesperson told FOX Business. 

“In the near-term, our in-person focus is designed to support a strong, valuable experience for our people who have chosen to work from the office, and we’re being thoughtful and intentional about where we invest in remote work.”

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The launch of the policy comes about three months after the company reportedly told employees about its expectations for those assigned to an office come early September. 

Meta, the corporate parent of Facebook, Instagram, Whatsapp and Threads, maintains various offices around the world. In the U.S., its footprint includes locations in New York City, the District of Columbia, the Bay Area and elsewhere, according to its career website. 

When CEO Mark Zuckerberg gave an update on the company’s “Year of Efficiency” in March, he encouraged Meta workers to “find more opportunities to work with [their] colleagues in person.”

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He also said Meta had a commitment to distributed work, a strategy he said in a message made publicly available online that the company would keep “refining” to make it as productive as possible. The social media company has a “hypothesis” that “it is still easier to build trust in person and that those relationships help us work more effectively,” according to his March comments.

Zuckerberg first unveiled the “Year of Efficiency” strategy earlier in the year. He has since described the goals of the initiative, which included layoffs, as making a “strong technology company that builds better products faster” and boosting “financial performance to give us the space in a difficult environment to execute our ambitious long term vision.”

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The value of Meta’s stock has risen over 140% from the start of the year, hitting $300.15 Tuesday. Over the past year, it has seen an 89% rise.

Meta had a workforce totaling nearly 71,500 at the end of June, a figure the company said still included roughly half of those laid off in 2023.