Starbucks to Fire Workers Not Complying With Hybrid Schedule

When new Starbucks CEO Brian Niccol started his role in September, there was a lot of talk about his commute, which will cover about 1,000 miles and occur via private jet. Starbucks HQ is located in Seattle, and Niccol lives in Newport Beach, California, where his previous employer, Chipotle, is headquartered.

The coffee giant requires corporate employees to be in the office for a hybrid schedule at least three days a week. However, Niccol made it clear that Starbucks would not tell employees what specific days to come into the office.

Still, that doesn’t mean workers can sidestep the three-day-a-week mandate.

Bloomberg News reports that beginning in January, Starbucks will start to enforce its hybrid working policy, though the policy itself is not changing. An internal Starbucks email seen by the outlet noted that consequences for employees who don’t meet hybrid expectations are “up to, and including, separation.”

“We are continuing to support our leaders as they hold their teams accountable to our existing hybrid work policy,” the company said in a statement on Monday, per Bloomberg.

^{Starbucks HQ in Seattle. Photo by David Ryder | Getty Images}

Starbucks’s three-day-a-week mandate is mild compared to other large companies that are enforcing a mandatory return to the office. In September, Amazon CEO Andy Jassy told employees that they would have to return to the office five days a week by January 2. Corporate workers, meanwhile, were not happy with the surprise news.

Walmart and Dell are also starting to enforce strict return-to-office mandates. One notable detractor is Spotify, which announced it is keeping its “work from anywhere” policy.

Related: Starbucks’ New CEO Will Have the Use of a Private Jet from California to Seattle Every Week to Meet Its RTO Rules