According to an email that was acquired by CNBC, Disney CEO Bob Iger informed hybrid workers on Monday that from March 1 they would be required to go to corporate offices four days a week.
Iger emphasised the significance of face-to-face interaction many times in the email.
During the time of the pandemic, several businesses decided to implement work-from-home or hybrid work models. These models ensured that there were fewer mass gatherings of people, which reduced the risk of the disease spreading. Companies like Disney tried to bring personnel back to offices and return to a more routine work environment prior to the pandemic as vaccination rates increased and case and hospitalisation rates decreased. This was done in an effort to restore the situation that existed before the epidemic.
Iger’s requirement that hybrid employees must be in the office four days per week is rather stringent when compared to the policies of other big corporations, many of whom have chosen to require hybrid workers to be in the office just two or three days per week. In September, Apple required all of its workers to report to work for three days every week. In November, Elon Musk, the owner of Twitter, issued an order requiring virtually all Twitter workers to go to the office for work five days per week. Musk is renowned for demonstrating his dedication to his businesses by sleeping at their headquarters.
Iger promised a two-year term that would inspire fresh development for the firm and prepare a successor to take his position as CEO of Disney when he returned to the head of the company less than two months ago and Disney’s new policy was announced less than two months ago.
Iger’s return in November came only days after the business’s previous CEO, Bob Chapek, said that he aimed to decrease costs at the company, which had been burdened by increasing spending at its streaming service, Disney+. Iger’s comeback also comes at a time when traditional media businesses are grappling with a fast altering market.
Iger has plans to restructure Disney’s Media & Entertainment Distribution business, which is responsible for the management of the company’s content as well as its distribution. While he is changing the organisational structure of the corporation in order to give budget powers back to people who pick creative initiatives, he has kept the employment freeze that was put in place by Chapek in place.
Over the course of the last year, Disney share prices have dropped by around forty percent. The market now values the corporation at about $174 billion dollars.