General Motors is revoking the "fully remote" status of about 100 white-collar workers and will now require them to come into the office at least three days a week. For some, the order will require relocating closer to an office, the Free Press has learned.
The employees impacted by this change include managers. They were notified of the new rule Friday, said two people familiar with the situation who asked to not be identified because they are not authorized to share the information publicly.
The 100 workers are located in the United States, one of the people confirmed. But like the rest of GM's global workforce, they will be required to be at their office desks Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday of each week. These employees have until the end of September to comply with the order, said one of the people, who added that the company is working with the people who face relocation.
Barra insisted on in-person attendance
The reason for the change is that GM leaders determined, given the type of jobs those remote employees were doing, they would perform better in a collaborative environment, one of the sources told the Free Press.
GM spokesman Kevin Kelly declined to comment.
GM's push to get salaried workers back at their desks inside GM's facilities after months of working remote during the COVID-19 pandemic has been a challenge, met with pushback along the way. But in December, GM CEO Mary Barra stood firm. She announced GM's current in-person work policy in a companywide email reported by the Free Press at the time. In it, Barra made it clear she wants white-collar workers at their desks inside GM facilities on three specific days of each week "at a minimum."
At that time Kelly said the move would help GM accelerate its transition to launching and selling more electric vehicles as the company targets an all-electric lineup by 2035.
“We’re going through a historical transformation around the business,” Kelly told the Free Press in December. “This (new policy) is a way to get more collaboration around that transformation.”
At GM's world headquarters inside the Renaissance Center along Detroit's riverfront, the policy helped restore some foot traffic in the building, giving a boost to some of the businesses inside.
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White-collar workers facing several changes
It's been a year of changes for GM's salaried workforce. In February, the Free Press was first to report that the automaker was changing how it determines bonuses for salaried employees. Starting this year, the automaker will include the performance of electric vehicles, software and services, and autonomous vehicle programs in the formula that determines the payout white-collar workers receive. The move is a dramatic shift from the previous formula where the bonus was completely based on GM's annual earnings before interest and taxes and its free cash flow.
In April, GM said it will relocate its global headquarters in 2025 from the Renaissance Center to billionaire Dan Gilbert's new Hudson's Detroit building on Woodward Avenue. GM will be the anchor tenant of the building and have a 15-year lease at the Hudson site.
Earlier this month, GM told salaried employees that it is moving from a three-point to a five-point performance rating scale effective for the year-end performance review cycle, which typically starts in November. GM has used the three-point rating for at least the past decade. As part of the new plan, GM expects each organization's manager to rate 5% of their team as significantly exceeds expectations, 10% as exceeds expectations, 70% achieves expectations, 10% partially meets expectations and 5% who do not meet expectations.
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Just a couple weeks ago, GM said it is eliminating more than 1,000 jobs — and possibly more than 1,500 — in its software division globally, with 634 of the jobs being cut coming from its Global Technical Center in Warren. GM said the move is to streamline that division's operations to work faster and more efficiently.
According to GM's annual report , GM had about 76,000 global salaried employees, 53,000 in the United States, as of the end of 2023.
Contact Jamie L. LaReau: jlareau@freepress.com . Follow her on Twitter @ jlareauan . Read more on General Motors and sign up for our autos newsletter . Become a subscriber .
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: GM revokes remote work status from more white-collar workers, orders them into office
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