Zoom orders staff to come into office at least two days a week

Zoom, the video calling company which became a household name during the pandemic, has ordered its workers to go back to the office.

It said it expected that workers who lived within 50 miles of an office should come into work in person at least twice a week in a “structured hybrid approach", reported the BBC.

Around 200 people work for Zoom in the UK which has offices in central London. The company has around 8,000 employees worldwide and is headquartered in the US.

A spokesperson said: “We believe that a structured hybrid approach – meaning a set number of days employees that live near an office need to be on site – is most effective for Zoom. As a company, we are in a better position to use our own technologies, continue to innovate, and support our global customers.

“We’ll continue to leverage the entire Zoom platform to keep our employees and dispersed teams connected and working efficiently.”

According to the Office for National Statistics, some 44% of British workers reported working from home at least some of the time between September last year and January.

A similar pattern exists in the US, where around 12% were fully remote in July, alongside another 29% who had a hybrid work pattern, according to research by Stanford University.

It comes after Apple told its staff to come in three days a week, while both Amazon and Disney also have reduced the amount of remote working staff can do.

Zoom earlier this year announced plans to lay off 15% of its global workforce, around 1,300 workers, saying it was having to adapt to life post-pandemic.

The video-calling company experienced a boom during Covid as remote working took off, but later said it made “mistakes” in scaling up so fast.