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WPP, the advertising group, has told its more than 100,000 employees that they will need to return to work in an office at least four days a week, in the latest sign of employers tightening up working from home policies since the end of the pandemic.
In a memo sent to staff on Tuesday, WPP chief executive Mark Read said that “from the beginning of April this year, the expectation . . . will be that most of us spend an average of four days a week in the office”.
He added that WPP’s “success still relies on the fundamentals of human connection, creativity and relationships”, and “that we do our best work when we are together in person”.
Until now, individual agencies owned by WPP had set their own hybrid working policies but staff at the group’s headquarters were required to be in the office three days a week.
The news makes WPP, which employs about 110,000 people in offices around the world, the latest large global employer to ask its staff to return more fully to the office in the new year. From this month, Amazon has told staff around the world that they should work in the office five days a week, with chief executive Andy Jassy saying a previous rule for three days a week in the workplace had “strengthened our conviction about the benefits” of being in the office.
In the UK, BT asked its 50,000 office-based workers to return to the office at least three days a week from the start of this year. Other UK employers that are tightening rules this month around working from home include PwC, Santander and Asda, marking a widespread shift in corporate attitudes to working since the end of the pandemic around the world.
WPP has found that higher levels of office attendance are associated with stronger “employee engagement, improved client survey scores and better financial performance”, said Read, adding: “More of our clients are moving in this direction and expecting it of the teams who work with them.”
Employers are now sometimes facing new issues about a lack of office space when bringing more staff back from homeworking.
WPP said that it would “take detailed planning in the coming months to address capacity requirements and other related areas” in its global offices.
The UK-listed advertising group will soon open a new office at One Southwark Bridge Road in London, which will largely house GroupM media agencies and about 2,500 people. It was the previous headquarters for the Financial Times.
The new office will join Rose Court on the opposite side of the road and its corporate headquarters at nearby Sea Containers House as one of three office campuses in London, where it employs about 10,000 people.
In the new year memo, Read also referenced the merger between two of its biggest rivals — IPG and Omnicom — announced last month, saying that “while industry mergers and jostling for status may distract our competitors, focus will be paramount for us in 2025”.
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