Walmart Employees Push Back Against Return-to-Office Mandate

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Walmart Announced The company announced in May that it would ask hundreds of remote workers to return to work in-person at its headquarters in Bentonville, Arkansas, Hoboken, New Jersey, and locations in Northern California. Bloomberg reports It shows that employees protested against the Return to Office (RTO) order in company-wide Zoom calls, with some choosing to quit.

During the call, one participant called the RTO policy “bullshit,” while others expressed concerns about living in Arkansas, raising children, increasing employment and how moving would affect their partners’ jobs.

Related: Survey finds C-Suite executives secretly hoped employees would quit after return-to-office orders were implemented

One Walmart employee told Bloomberg that they decided to quit rather than be transferred on short notice.

Walmart’s chief human resources officer, Donna Morris, told the paper that the vast majority of employees have chosen to return to the office. Employees had to let the company know by July 1 if they were planning to relocate and had until October 31 to do so.

Employees who can’t transfer will have to leave the company between August 2024 and January 2025, according to Bloomberg.

^{Walmart CEO Doug McMillon. Photo by David Paul Morris/Bloomberg via Getty Images}

Walmart isn’t the only company with strict RTO policies: Salesforce announced last month that employees across all divisions would have to report into the office, just weeks after laying off 300 employees, and Bank of America warned it would take “disciplinary action” against employees who didn’t report into the office.

Related: Walmart lays off hundreds of employees, reassigns remote workers to offices

Dell has asked employees to return to the office, announced that those who don’t will not be promoted, and said in May that it would begin tracking employee badge swipes and take the metrics into account when determining employee evaluations, compensation and pay.

A July survey by Bamboo HR found that executives secretly hoped that mandatory RTOs would encourage employees to quit and leave voluntarily, something Bamboo HR called “hidden layoffs.”

Related: Dell is showing ‘red flags’ for hybrid employees based on how often they’re in the office