Nike Employees Have a New Return-to-Office Mandate Starting Next Year

Meghan Hall
·3 min read

Nike has tweaked its return-to-office requirements a number of times since 2021 — and once January of 2024 hits, the company’s employees will face yet another change to its hybrid work strategy.

The Beaverton, Oregon-based athletic apparel and footwear giant confirmed Thursday that “office-based teammates” will be expected to work in the office four days a week starting in January. This is up an additional day from its current policy requiring employees to be present for three in-office days.

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In a statement, the company said an emphasis on the benefits on face-to-face collaboration proved the reason for the change.

“We’ve seen the power and energy that comes from working together in person, and we aim to create more of that,” Nike said.

The employer of nearly 84,000 announced its current policy, which requires employees to bank three in-office days each week, in February of 2022.

But leading up to that, it delayed its return-to-office plans — initially scheduled for September 2021, then scheduled for January of 2022. Most employees were required to return by May 3 of last year.

Nike has office locations in Beaverton; New York City; Shanghai, and Hilversum in The Netherlands. The company announced last year that it will open a technology center in Atlanta.

The company did not clarify whether the new mandate would apply to all its offices, nor did it comment on how the mandate will be enforced.

Nike previously enforced its Covid-19 vaccination mandate by opting to fire employees who refused to get vaccinated prior to its scheduled return to office, which was later delayed.

According to “The Evolution of Working from Home” study published by Stanford University’s Institute for Economic Policy Research in July, almost 30 percent of full-time employees in the United States maintain a hybrid work schedule. Meanwhile, 59 percent of American full-time employees commute to the office five days a week, per the study authored by Jose Maria Barrero of the Instituto Tecnológico Autónomo de México, Stanford’s Nicholas Bloom, and Steven J. Davis from the University of Chicago.

For those working in a hybrid capacity, the research states, three days in office has prevailed as the common model.

“A typical pattern is to commute into the office on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday and to focus those workdays on meetings, presentations, training, mentoring, lunches with colleagues and clients, and other in-person tasks. Work from home on Mondays and Fridays can then focus on tasks that require individual effort and intense focus,” the authors wrote.

Additional research supports Nike’s return-to-office policy. According to data that ResumeBuilder published in August and updated this month, 90 percent of employers with a physical workspace will require workers to get back into the office by the end of next year. Most (72 percent) of the 1,000 corporate executives it surveyed say getting employees back into the office has lifted their company’s revenue performance. And some will play hardball with employees who fail to comply; 70 percent will track attendance and 28 percent would potentially make compliance a condition of continued employment.

Nike, which also announced Thursday a collaboration between Liverpool Football Club and its subsidiary, Converse, exceeded expectations in its recent earnings report, but its stock price was down nearly 13 percent year over year, as of Oct. 19.

Additional reporting by Jessica Binns.

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