SEATTLE — Starbucks’ stricter return-to-office mandate goes into effect on Monday, increasing the number of in-person days from three to four. The policy change — not an exception among large Seattle employers — comes at a difficult time for some of the coffee giant’s workers.

On Thursday, Starbucks announced a $1 billion restructuring plan that entails laying off 900 nonretail employees and shuttering an unspecified number of stores, including at least two Seattle locations: the Reserve Roastery on Capitol Hill and the Reserve store in Sodo.

In addition, when the company announced the tightened return-to-office policy this summer, it also brought two notable points: a relocation requirement and an exit program.

The relocation mandate, which applies to managers, obliges them to move to Seattle or Toronto by July.

The one-time voluntary exit program with a cash payment was put on the table for those who are not fans of the changes, which points to the potential for strict enforcement.

The combination left a sour taste with some workers, who were already weary of past corporate layoffs and the return-to-office crackdown. Several of them shared concerns with The Seattle Times and asked to remain anonymous to protect their jobs.

I don't think I've talked to anybody who has had anything positive to say in response to this change of policy," said a Washington-based data analyst. "It does make me reconsider what my long-term plans at Starbucks are."

Starbucks CEO Brian Niccol acknowledged the challenge at the time.

"We understand not everyone will agree with this approach. We’ve listened and thought carefully," Niccol wrote in July. "But as a company built on human connection, and given the scale of the turnaround ahead, we believe this is the right path for Starbucks."

A Starbucks spokesperson declined to provide the number of employees who took the buyout, citing lack of access to the information.

The old is the new normal

Return-to-office requirements are the talk of the town in the Seattle area, with Amazon's five-day policy taking effect earlier this year and Microsoft implementing a three-day in-office mandate in February 2026.

Before the COVID-19 pandemic, Starbucks subscribed to the traditional five-day workweek in office.

The company transitioned to a hybrid work policy in January 2023 after the days of remote work during the COVID-19 pandemic. In October it said it would enforce its mandate to work three days in office at the start of this year. Then it announced the increased requirement to four days in July to take effect this September.

Niccol reasoned in his July message to workers that the revival is "because we do our best work when we’re together."

But some don't agree.

A Washington state Starbucks worker in finance acknowledges that's how the workplace operated before COVID-19, but she argues that the world has changed since then.

"This has been our lives for the past five and a half years," she said. "It's just uprooting so much."

Marcos Santana, a former Starbucks employee who worked remotely before being laid off earlier this year, has been watching the company’s new approaches unfold. "You're telling me, if I stayed, I had to move to Seattle just to prove my worth when I have already proven my worth,” said Santana, who lives in Florida.

The mandate said that employees who are outside of a 50-mile commute to their work locations can keep their legacy remote positions "as long as the business can support it.”

Some worry about what that means for their future.

An employee in retail support, based outside of Seattle on the West Coast, said that his "career's completely stalled out … I now have no development opportunities unless I relocate to Seattle."

Santana, who worked at the company for two years as a global lead for software development engineering in test, notes a change of workplace culture. He was first hired in 2023, and, "after six months, I was convinced that Starbucks honestly had the best culture that I have ever seen in an organization," Santana said.

But when Niccol replaced former CEO Laxman Narasimhan last year, "things shifted for the worst, little by little, from a culture standpoint," Santana said. "It simply got destroyed, to be honest."

Workers who spoke with The Seattle Times raised concerns about how the changes will impact their professional paths. They said several leaders unwilling to resettle in the Emerald City have exited the company, and some employees are planning to pivot their careers.

At least two workers have lost mentors — a manager and a director — due to the relocation policy.

Following this year's layoffs and the latest corporate mandates, a Washington-based employee who works in tech said he gets the sense that the company is trying to push people out.

Brandon, who works in technology at Starbucks, is applying for new jobs after the announcement of recent corporate mandates.

"They're kind of setting it up so, if you're a remote worker, it's like, why would you even want to keep working here?" said Brandon, who withheld his last name out of fear of retaliation by his employer. "They're just minimizing people and teams."

'Gets worse and worse'

From the academic perspective, the reactions of the employees are "not too surprising," said Peter Cappelli, professor of management at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and author of several books about workforce issues.

"If you wait five years and tell people, you know, time to come back to the office, by that point, it's become the new normal," he said. "They've built a lot of their lives around the fact that they don't have to go into the office, and they have a lot at stake in the current arrangements."

During the COVID-19 pandemic, when remote work policies were implemented across industries, employees were motivated to perform well because they wanted to stay employed and had health concerns about in-office environments, Cappelli said.

While employers didn't expect remote work to go well, it exceeded their expectations, he added.

Still, "it could work fine at the very beginning, then start to get worse and worse and worse over time," Cappelli said.

He listed how in-office work benefits large companies: by promoting collaboration, making meetings more effective and helping new hires acclimate.

For current employees, "they're pretty happy working remotely," Cappelli said. "They know what they're doing."

In order for a massive organizational change like a return-to-office mandate to succeed, Cappelli advised corporate leadership to make the case for why it's necessary by providing evidence.

"Most companies have not done that, he added.

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