General Motors Shuffles Michigan Workforce As It Preps To Re-Open Offices

General Motors will move some of its salaried Michigan employees to new facilities once it begins to re-open its U.S.-based offices this summer.

According to The Detroit Free Press, the automaker is shuffling some of its white-collar employees around in a bid to improve collaboration among its internal teams. The automaker told the newspaper that the changes “reflect adapting to post-pandemic workplaces where the future will be more flexible.” This new-found flexibility, GM says, will enable some employees to attend in-work places with the option of working remotely when needed.

“We really don’t know exactly how it will look other than that the future will be more flexible,” GM spokesman David Caldwell said this week. “That’s sort of our theme.”

The automaker is moving all 900 workers from its Customer Care and Aftersales offices in Grand Blanc, Michigan to the existing Global Technical Center in Warren. The automaker is also moving marketing and product personnel from its Renaissance Center HQ in downtown Detroit to the Warren Tech Center. Lastly, GM said it will hire a large number of new IT specialists, who will be working out of the Ren Cen.

While the automaker is plotting an eventual return to work for salaried employees, GM leadership is still fine-tuning the return-to-work strategy and various COVID-19 related office protocols. When the automaker’s blue-collar workforce went back to work last year, it issued a 40-page handbook to employees that outlined the various measures and guidelines it had put in place to prevent the spread of COVID-19 within its facilities. The handbook included guidelines for social distancing, PPE and sanitization, among more.

GM currently employs roughly 68,000 salaried workers in the United States, the majority of which have been working from home for the duration of the COVID-19 pandemic. Some white collar workers must go into work to perform their jobs, however, like engineers that may need access to certain technology or equipment.

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