Starbucks takes aim at remote work, says some employees may need to relocate to headquarters
In a letter to employees posted on Monday, Starbucks Chairman and CEO Brian Niccol said corporate employees would need to be in the office four days a week starting in early October instead of three days a week.
The Seattle-based company said that all corporate 'people leaders' must be based in either Seattle or Toronto within 12 months. That is a change from February, when it required vice presidents to relocate to Seattle or Toronto.
Starbucks said individual employees working under those leaders would not be asked to relocate. But the company said all hiring for future roles and lateral moves will require employees to be based in Seattle or Toronto.
'We are reestablishing our in-office culture because we do our best work when we're together. We share ideas more effectively, creatively solve hard problems, and move much faster,' Niccol wrote in the letter.
Niccol said affected workers who choose not to relocate will be eligible for a one-time voluntary exit program with a cash payment.
While many workers grew to enjoy working from home during the pandemic, the call for workers to return to offices full-time has been growing over the past year. Major employers such as Amazon, AT&T and the federal government have required employees to work in company sites five days per week. Competition for fully-remote jobs is fierce.
Starbucks spokeswoman Lori Torgerson said she didn't have a count of employees who are currently working as 'people leaders' or are working remotely. Starbucks has 16,000 corporate support employees worldwide, but that includes coffee roasters and warehouse staff.
Niccol was not required to relocate to Seattle when he was hired to lead Starbucks last August. Instead, the company said it would help him set up an office near his home in Newport Beach, California, and would give him the use of a corporate jet to commute to Seattle.
Since then, Niccol has bought a home in Seattle and is frequently seen at the company's headquarters, Torgerson said.
___
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The Independent
25 minutes ago
- The Independent
Facing fallout from Epstein and inflation President Donald Trump turns to misdirection
As the president faces a sustained rebellion among some of his most loyal MAGA influencers, and watches younger Americans who make up their audiences turn away, he appears desperate to find a new narrative on which his voters can fixate. Right-wing podcasters are far from the only ones talking about the issue. It has expanded through the so-called 'manosphere' and continues to dominate discussions on X, Reddit and other platforms including YouTube, where a wide range of political commentators are joining the fray. Reports indicate the issue has fractured the president's top advisers. The result: Trump is swinging at every potential issue that comes his way as he searches for a piece of red meat to throw at the hungry wolves. Over the weekend came the president's first and second attempts. A vow to revoke the citizenship of Rosie O'Donnell (clearly a pressing matter, and also, not legal) followed by a strangely-worded plea to his followers: just drop it, guys! Then a third, on Sunday: crashing the on-stage celebration of Chelsea as the club emerged victorious over PSG at the Club World Cup. 'What's going on with my 'boys' and, in some cases, 'gals'?' asked a very normal-sounding Trump on Truth Social over the weekend. 'We have a PERFECT Administration, THE TALK OF THE WORLD, and 'selfish people' are trying to hurt it, all over a guy who never dies, Jeffrey Epstein,' he continued. On Tuesday, the administration was hit with another bit of bad news. Inflation ticked up to its highest level in months in June as the president continued to threaten tariffs on the country's closest trading partners, and despite Trump's insistences to the contrary. For months, the president has raged at Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell, demanding that he cut interest rates. Powell has refused, citing inflation risks; this clearly undermines Trump's insistence. Now, with Trump's so-called 'reciprocal' tariffs set to go into effect in just over two weeks, there will be even more questions aimed at the White House on the issue of how much higher prices will be for the average American consumer. Those immediate price hikes, should they continue or even accelerate, could severely undercut Republican members of Congress as they campaign for re-election into the beginning of next year on the passage of Trump's spending legislation which included the extension of the 2017 tax cuts. And so Trump needed a distraction. On Tuesday, that meant swinging at a familiar target: Adam Schiff, the junior Democratic senator from California. In a Truth Social post, he falsely accused Schiff of mortgage fraud for claiming a home in Maryland as his primary residence. But the practice is common for members of Congress, who spend months at a time working out of the Capitol and in decades past used to move their whole families to the D.C., Maryland or northern Virginia regions for ease of access to their jobs. Political pressure now forces many to maintain residences near the Capitol and back in their home states. This is of course hardly a burden for many members of Congress but can be difficult for younger members with more limited financial means. Legal analysts who looked at the residences have said that Trump's claims of clear illegality are false. And that's to say nothing of the can of worms the president could have opened with the following line: 'he must LIVE in CALIFORNIA because he was a Congressman from CALIFORNIA.' That could certainly be an awkward line of attack were it to be repurposed against Sen. Tommy Tuberville, the Alabama senator (and apparent Florida resident) who is now running for governor in the former state and already taking fire from Democrats on the issue of his residency. Schiff told Inside Washington on Tuesday that the post was 'just the latest example of political retaliation by Donald Trump against one of his perceived enemies'. But the president, right now, seems solely focused on moving his base past the one issue that has now divided it to a greater extent than anything since perhaps January 6. Ironically, that's the same kind of tunnel vision that led his vice president, JD Vance, to fan these flames to start with. It remains to see if he'll be successful, or if the administration can come up with something to satisfy his critics — who aren't growing any quieter. But the White House's current strategy reeks of desperation.
Daily Mail
30 minutes ago
- Daily Mail
Bailey goes toe-to-toe with the Chancellor over her overriding growth mission, says ALEX BRUMMER
The Mansion House dinner in the City of London is one of the few official occasions when the governor of the Bank of England and the Chancellor appear together on the same platform. Andrew Bailey, who was once Rachel Reeves' senior on Threadneedle Street, did travel with her to Beijing in January this year. Eyebrows were raised because it happened to be a tense moment on the market for UK government bonds and a perceived mistake for both policy setters to be in the Pacific. Before the Bank was given its independence in 1997, the Mansion House was the great monetary event of the year when the Chancellor would give new marching orders to the governor. All that changed in deference to the Bank's independence. On both sides of the Atlantic, the issue of central bank independence has raised its head. In America, Donald Trump's relentless attacks on Federal Reserve chairman Jay Powell for failure to bring interest rates down more speedily has been unnecessarily crude. If anything, it stiffened the resolve of the Fed's interest rate setting Open Markets Committee not to be bullied. The latest US consumer price data for June, showing inflation zipped up to 2.7 per cent, partly fuelled by tariffs, suggest the battle between Fed and White House is not over. Matters are handled differently in Britain. Historically, all it needed was a twitch of the governor's eyebrows to make a change in the Square Mile. That era, and the Ken and Eddie show when Chancellor Ken Clarke and governor Eddie George would set interest rates together, is long over. In keeping with British understatement, disagreements between Bank and Treasury rarely bubble to the surface in public. Yet governors have ways of making their broader views known. Eddie George was highly sceptical of the 'one size fits all' of the eurozone. Mark Carney was less than enthusiastic about Brexit. He played a big role in the 2014 Scottish referendum when he argued that two economies, each going their own way with one central bank and currency, could be destabilising. The smiles and the connection that comes with being former colleagues does not mean Bailey and Reeves always are on the same page. In her determination to use all the levers possible to propel her growth mission, she is seeking backup powers from Parliament that would allow her to direct up to 10 per cent of pension fund savings into infrastructure projects, start-ups and equities. Bailey, rightly, repeatedly has rejected the compulsion. Privately, Reeves is thought to be frustrated by the Bank's reluctance to lower bank rate from 4.25 per cent to support flagging output. She nonetheless likes to take credit for interest rate cuts and lower mortgage rates since she arrived at No. 11. Remarks by Bailey suggest that, with the economy stumbling, he and colleagues on the Monetary Policy Committee will begin to ease rates in August which could relieve tension. Downing Street and the Treasury were less than pleased with Bailey's interview in The Times this week when he suggested that firms were 'adjusting employment' because of rise of the rise in employers' National Insurance contributions (NICs). The Treasury retorted that the NICs are paying for the NHS and helping waiting lists to fall. Tell that to the owners of pubs, hospitality outlets and retailers forced to close their doors. The Chancellor, having so far failed to put a fire under output, insists that easing the 'red tape' around City listings and fundraising, and a new 'concierge service', encouraging overseas investors to London, will assist. Reeves is also behind the initiatives to unblock mortgage lending for the less well-off, and ease capital ratios for the banks. As a former regulator and an official in the engine room of the Bank in the great financial crisis, Bailey is more cautious. There is no market or economic upside in the Bank and the Chancellor being at odds. Central bank independence is not yet an issue. However, grown-up dissension from the Bank is a useful antidote to Reeves. The Chancellor is openly chastised by business leaders for hearing but not listening.
The Independent
34 minutes ago
- The Independent
Workers fear being forced back into office, survey finds
Workers say they are being negatively impacted by pressure to spend more time in the office, a survey has found, as a growing number of companies toughen their stance on remote working. The poll, conducted by recruitment firm Hays, found that 38 per cent of respondents reported a negative impact on their wellbeing following recent news coverage of firms increasing office attendance requirements. This effect was skewed towards female respondents, with 42 per cent of women reporting negative effects on their wellbeing from news coverage about return-to-office mandates, compared to 32 per cent of men. Younger workers between the ages of 20 and 29 also expressed more concern than their older counterparts aged 50 and above. Around 84 per cent of hybrid workers said being permitted to work from home or remotely had a positive effect on their wellbeing. This effect also skewed towards female respondents, with 87 per cent of women reporting improved wellbeing from a hybrid model versus 80 per cent of men. All respondents in favour of the hybrid model cited improvements to their mental, physical, social and financial health. The findings are based on responses from 3,600 UK-based employers and employees across both the public and private sectors, collected between late April and early May. Financial pressure, particularly commuting expenses, emerged as a key concern, with 59 per cent saying it was a factor that would affect their willingness to return to the office more frequently. According to data from the Office for National Statistics, hybrid working was the norm for 28 per cent of working adults in Great Britain during the first quarter of 2025. But a number of major firms, especially in the finance sector, have announced stricter return-to-office policies. HSBC warned UK retail banking staff in May that a failure to spend at least 60 per cent of their time in the office could result in reduced bonuses. Barclays and Santander have also introduced more restrictive remote working guidelines. Man Group, the world's largest publicly listed hedge fund, required London-based analysts to return to the office full-time on a temporary basis from June, as the company looks to recover from a period of underperformance. Hannah Pearsall, the head of wellbeing at Hays, said: 'The popularity of hybrid working shows no signs of wavering any time soon, and the role this flexible working pattern plays in improving wellbeing should not be overlooked. 'A lack of awareness around the impact of a return to the office on wellbeing, particularly financial wellbeing, could be catastrophic for the sustained success of their business.'
