WPP, the advertising group, has told its more than 100,000 employees that they will have to return to working in an office at least four days a week, in the latest sign that employers are tightening work-from-home policies since the end of the pandemic.
In a memo sent to staff on Tuesday, WPP Chief executive Mark Read said: “Since the beginning of April this year, the expectation. . . “Most of us spend an average of four days a week in the office.”
He added that WPP’s “success still depends on the fundamentals of human connection, creativity and relationships” and “that we do our best work when we are together in person.”
Until now, individual agencies owned by WPP had set their own hybrid working policies, but staff at the group’s headquarters were required to be in the office three days a week.
The news makes WPP, which employs around 110,000 people in offices around the world, the latest major global employer to ask its staff to return more fully to the office in the new year. Starting this month, Amazon has told staff around the world that they should work in the office five days a week, and chief executive Andy Jassy said a previous three-day-a-week workplace rule had “reinforced our conviction about the benefits” of being in the office.
In the UK, BT asked its 50,000 office workers return to the office at least three days a week from the beginning of this year. Other UK employers tightening rules on working from home this month include PwC, Santander and Asda, marking a widespread shift in corporate attitudes towards working since the end of the pandemic around the world.
WPP has found that higher levels of office attendance are associated with greater “employee engagement, better customer survey scores and better financial performance,” Read said, adding: “More and more of our clients “They are moving in this direction and they expect it from the teams that work.” with them.”
Employers now sometimes face new problems related to a lack of office space when they bring more staff back from home working.
WPP said it would “undertake detailed planning in the coming months to address capacity requirements and other related areas” at its global offices.
The UK-listed advertising group will soon open a new office at One Southwark Bridge Road in London, which will largely house GroupM’s media agencies and around 2,500 people. It was the former headquarters of the Financial Times.
The new office will join Rose Court on the opposite side of the road and its corporate headquarters at nearby Sea Containers House as one of three office campuses in London, where it employs around 10,000 people.
In the new year’s memo, Read also referenced the merger between two of his biggest rivals: IPG and Omnicom – announced last month, saying that “while industrial mergers and the fight for status may distract our competitors, concentration will be paramount for us in 2025.”