After a Friday afternoon message to employees caused backlash and confusion, General GM is conducting damage control around its return to office plans.
Corporate workers will be required to return to their physical locations at least three days a week, starting later this year, according to the company.
The company won't be mandating specific in-office days, instead leaving that to individual teams.
The plan was always to design the solution that best balances the needs of the enterprise with the needs of each of you, according to a memo signed by CEO Mary Barra and other executives.
There will be no requirement for workers to return to work before the first quarter of next year.
The Tuesday message said that the intangible benefits of in person collaboration are going to be a critical success factor as we move into a period of rapid launches. Being prepared for the next phase of our transformation is what this evolution is about.
A GM spokesman said the message sought to provide more clarity to help answer some of the questions and concerns they have been receiving. The timing of the return-to-office has changed, but the plan has not changed.
Both messages are a stark change from the flexible "work appropriately" rules that were announced by the company. It is a policy that will change depending on the employee, week and project.
The original message was vague and GM apologized for that. Some information about the company's plan was premature shared with some departments, according to leaders.
Before we had the chance to work on the implementation plan, we decided to communicate enterprise wide. The Tuesday message states that the benefits of being transparent outweigh the risk of creating distrust.
GM will communicate more information at the end of next month and will spend the next few weeks listening to your feedback so that we incorporate it into our implementation plans.
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