Despite tech companies leading the way toward remote work during and after the pandemic, Instagram this week became the latest big-tech org to call workers back to the office full-time.
In a memo released Monday, Adam Mosseri, CEO and president of the 20,000-employee social media giant, informed employees they will be required to work five days a week in an office starting Feb. 2. Since 2023, the organization has had a three-day, in-office policy. It is now the first of the family of Meta companies—including Facebook and WhatsApp—to mandate a full-time return to the office.
A number of big-name organizations have taken a hardline approach to return-to-office in recent weeks: Paramount, for instance, shelled out $185 million in severance packages after telling employees they could either return to the office or resign, while leadership at AT&T and JPMorgan Chase rebuffed employee pushback, inviting them to quit.
Instagram took a slightly softer approach—emphasizing culture and the impact of talent on business strategy.
Mosseri acknowledged lagging business performance and predicted that 2026 could be “tough” for the company, thus prompting a shift in policies to enable talent to drive better business outcomes.
Mosseri wrote that Instagram employees are “more creative and collaborative” in person.
“These changes are going to meaningfully help us move Instagram forward in a way we can all be proud of—with creativity, boldness and craft,” he said.
Unlike other recent return-to-office announcements, Instagram’s also sought to speak to the widespread employee sentiment that flexible work is ideal for productivity: Mosseri stipulated that meetings would be reduced to give employees enough focus time and highlighted the ongoing availability of flexibility.
Mosseri told employees they could still “work from home when you need to” and that he would “trust you all to use your best judgment in figuring out how to adapt to this schedule.”
While it remains to be seen how flexible Instagram’s policies will remain, its positioning of return-to-office as a business strategy with people at the center reflects a departure from the more recent mandates.
These stricter policies, career coach Julia Korn recently wrote for Forbes, will “erode trust, connection and engagement.” Rather, approaching the issue as a “co-created experience”—not a “top-down directive”—will enable companies to “thrive long term.”
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