Ford Wants Its Employees Back In Office Four Days A Week

Reuters reports that GM’s old cross-town rival Ford is making a change to its staffing policies. The Blue Oval is calling for most of its salaried workforce to come to the office for at least four days per week in an effort to increase employee and company performance. The American automaker notified the staff of the upcoming change on Wednesday, and it takes effect on September 1^st, 2025.

“Many of our employees have been in the office three or more days per week for some time now. We believe working together in person on a day-to-day basis will help accelerate Ford’s transformation into a higher-growth, higher-margin, less cyclical, and more dynamic company,” a Ford spokesperson told Reuters.

This change aligns with corporate America’s post-pandemic shift from remote work back to in-person work in corporate offices. Reuters cites JPMorgan and Amazon as business giants that have mandated hybrid workers to come back to the office for five days per week.

As for GM, it mandated most salaried employees to work in the office for three days a week starting in early 2023. GMC CEO Mary Barra later sent a company-wide email saying that workers would be required to return to the office at least three times a week by the start of the 2024 calendar year. Ford’s decision to mandate a 4-day workweek in the office may be a signal of a similar change at GM in the near future in order to stay competitive.

Six months after Mary Barra made her request for salaried employees to return to the office in 2024, she claimed that most workers have recognized the benefits of working in person and have a genuine desire to be there. “You can’t design a vehicle over Zoom, and so we asked everybody to be back,” Barra told The Detroit News. “Whether it’s casual mentoring, casual learning, or just networking, you understand what different people do, you run into them in the cafeteria, and you have a quick lunch with them. Those are all important parts of development. When people did come back and spent a couple of weeks, they were like, ‘I get it. I want to be here.'”