In an email to associates this week: "Effective September 18th, hybrid roles within a reasonable commuting distance (defined as 40 driving miles) are required to be onsite 3 days a week - this includes our HQ (Newport News, VA) and Chico (CA) locations."
This includes people who were hired as 100% remote. For those of us in the VA location, that can mean a 1.5 hour commute ONE WAY. There has been no indication that productivity has suffered through remote work - the opposite in fact. The marketing team, for example, has completed record numbers of projects in the past couple years.
At the start of the pandemic, Ferg had just finsihed building a new multimill dollars HQ campus which then sat basically empty - maybe not a coincidence that they want to justify that cost.
People were crying in meetings when this was announced. There are alot of associates who live outside the 40 mile radius that will (for now) be allowed to continue to work 100% remote. So, it's possible that on a team, only 1 person will be going into the office and the rest of their coworkers will continue to call in on Zoom.
Leadership claims that they made the decision based on role, but people in the same role will be playing by different rules depending on where they live.
Ferguson will absolutely lose the best of the best who will be able to find fully remote jobs with other companies. Maybe that's the plan?????