Messaging platform Snapchat, eager to get its workers back to face-to-face operations, plans to implement a policy that mandates employees be back in the office at least four days a week.
Parent company Snap Inc. told employees in a memo this week that the social media company would phase out its predominantly remote-work policy starting in February, marking a turning point for a pandemic-era shift toward flexible work. Companies have been evaluating in-office policies all year as pandemic restrictions eased, a process that's been watched closely by owners of office properties counting on usage to return to pre-pandemic levels.
The memo, first reported by Bloomberg, said workers would be required to be in the office for at least 80% of the time as Santa Monica, California-based Snap grapples with increasing competition, mounting economic uncertainty and declining advertising revenue. Snap did not immediately respond to CoStar News' requests to comment.
“I believe that spending more time together in person will help us to achieve our full potential,” Snap CEO Evan Spiegel wrote to employees, adding that the new policy would provide some flexibility on a case-by-case basis. “What each of us may sacrifice in terms of our individual convenience, I believe we will reap in terms of our collective success."
Snap is the latest global tech company to tighten the reins on its remote and hybrid-work policy as the labor market among companies including Meta, Google, Alphabet and Amazon becomes increasingly challenged. Many tech companies have implemented hiring freezes or layoffs to grapple with the sudden slowing from their pandemic-era growth spurts.
Meta and home-sharing platform Airbnb have also made deep cuts to their once-vast real estate portfolios, shutting office locations, subleasing unwanted space, terminating prelease agreements and walking away from future investments as they join the shift toward more flexible remote-work options and prepare for economic headwinds that analysts say might result in a recession.
For Snapchat, those headwinds have resulted in the company reporting its slowest quarterly sales growth in its history for the third quarter ended Sept. 30. The social media giant attributed the performance to declining advertising spending and increased competition, and has so far refocused its business and pulled back on capital expenditures.
However, some employers are leveraging the economic uncertainty to phase out remote-work policies and revert back to pre-pandemic operations. Tesla billionaire Elon Musk, who also now owns social media company Twitter, has been persistent in his attempts to get employees back to in-person work. Apple also asked its workers to return for at least three days a week as part of a policy it implemented in September.
It laid off about 20% of its workforce in August and curb as many expenses as possible, including substantial cuts to its real estate portfolio. Last month it closed its nearly 33,300-square-foot office in the 875 Howard building more than two years before the November 2024 expiration of its lease.
Snap's four-day policy will apply to employees across all 30 of its offices around the world, according to the memo, which also said the company is developing a process for workers to request an exception.
“We’ve been working this way for so long that I’m afraid we’ve forgotten what we’ve lost — and what we could gain — by spending more time together,” Spiegel wrote. “I believe that ‘default together,’ while retaining flexibility for our team members, will help us to accelerate our growth."