Disney employees furious over return-to-office mandate
Another return-to-office showdown is underway, and this time it’s taking place in “the happiest place on earth.”
After stating last month that employees must be in the office at least four days a week, Disney CEO Bob Iger is getting some backlash this week. More than 2,300 employees have signed a new petition to get Iger to reconsider the return office mandate, The Washington Post reported Thursday.
“There is value in being together, but we also need to look ahead and embrace new paradigms that add value,” the petition reads.
Employees argue the policy will have “unintended consequences” that could hurt the company, including “forced layoffs among some of our most difficult-to-replace talent and vulnerable communities,” resulting in dramatically reduced “productivity, output and efficiency.” could .”
Employees with disabilities, young children or other issues requiring remote work all gave testimonies in the petition post reported.
“I think everyone has adapted really well to the flexibility at Disney that has been introduced during the pandemic,” said an unnamed employee at the outlet. “Having all of that suddenly gone was really scary for a lot of people.”
“The flexibility at Disney really felt like a fresh start,” said another employee. “Now it feels like we’re moving backwards.”
Iger returned as Disney’s CEO in November after only leaving the company for 11 months. In his first 15-year tenure, the 72-year-old former ABC president managed to grow Disney’s net income by over 400%, in part by adding top brands like Marvel and Pixar.
The news that employees are cracking down on Iger’s return-to-office mandates comes after the CEO laid off 7,000 employees earlier this month as part of a cost-cutting move. But despite her protest, the petition, which involves more than 2,300 employees, is just a drop in the bucket for a company with more than 200,000 employees.
“The work we are doing to reshape our business around creativity while reducing costs will result in sustained growth and profitability for our streaming business, better positioning us to weather future disruptions and global economic challenges , and create value for our shareholders,” he said of the layoffs in a statement.
Disney is far from the only one wealth 500 Company requires employees to return to the office in the past year. From big tech giants like Apple to financial services firms like Vanguard Group, a number of US firms have tried, with varying degrees of success, to get workers back into the office in the wake of the pandemic.
Last month, Morgan Stanley’s CEO quipped that working remotely was “not an employee choice.” And Goldman Sachs CEO David Solomon told employees more than a year ago that remote work was “not a new normal,” but the company is still struggling to achieve pre-pandemic presence at its Manhattan headquarters. Though building occupancy rates have recovered in most major cities this year, they still remain well below pre-pandemic levels as many remote workers continue to push back return-to-office mandates.
Jose Maria Barrero, assistant professor of finance at the Instituto Tecnológico Autónomo de México (ITAM), said wealth‘s Jane Thier earlier this month that CEOs may have to accept that some of their employees will never return to the office.
“I think there’s going to be a cap on workplace attendance,” he said, arguing that 60% office attendance might be the most managers can hope for these days.
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