Валентин Шнайдер That's Life 10 September 2025, 17:05

Microsoft will send employees back to offices from 2026

Microsoft has decided to bring employees back to the office for at least three days a week. The policy will take effect at the end of February 2026 and will be implemented in phases.

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Microsoft will send employees back to offices from 2026

Microsoft has decided to bring employees back to the office for at least three days a week. The policy will take effect at the end of February 2026 and will be implemented in phases.

According to Business Insider, the first phase will be the Seattle region: employees who live within 50 miles of a Microsoft office will be required to work offline three times a week. The restrictions will then be extended to other offices in the US, and then abroad.

An internal letter to employees from Microsoft HR Director Amy Coleman explains that the company wants «more clarity and consistency in hybrid work.» It notes that the change is not about staff cuts, but is aimed at increasing team collaboration and speed of development, especially in the age of AI.

The company is allowing employees to request an exception until September 19. Details of under what conditions exceptions may be approved have not yet been released.

Microsoft was one of the few big tech companies to maintain a relatively soft approach to hybrid work after the pandemic. Previously, employees could work remotely at least half the time without special approval. The new rules effectively bring the company’s policy closer to standards set by Meta and Google, which already require a mandatory offline presence three times a week.

Microsoft was one of the few Big Tech companies to allow more flexible working hours after the pandemic than Google, Amazon, or Meta. In 2020, it officially allowed employees to work remotely at least half the time without management approval, but in practice, employees stayed home even more often.

Now, amid increasing competition in the AI era and a series of layoffs in 2024–2025, the company is gradually moving to tighter control: requiring regular presence in offices, implementing new performance evaluation systems, and trying to increase team efficiency.

Previously, dev.ua wrote about how 35-year-old programmer Pratik Pandey, who worked for Microsoft’s Silicon Valley team, died during a night shift at the company’s Silicon Valley campus. According to his family, he constantly stayed up late to work, and it was the grueling schedule that became fatal for his life.