Multinational automaker company Stellantis has announced significant changes to its previous remote work policy.
These news come as the company makes major changes amongst their leadership positions.
Stellantis has shifted its previous 70% remote work policy. Now, workers are required to be in-office for at least three days a week.
The Human Resources Lead, Xavier Chereau, says the company is revamping its offices to help welcome employees back. Simultaneously, the company has aired profit warnings about its struggling brands.
“We need to be pragmatic and we are recalibrating,” Chereau said. “If there’s a difficult project that needs attention, then it’s all week in the office.”
The news are shocking since Stellantis CEO, Carlos Tavares, always supported remote work.
He was very vocal about WFH benefits when the company worked to downsize office space and real estate assets in efforts to cut costs.
The company has recently been under fire since they had to slash its profit forecast for the year.
“Given what the situation is today, I feel the need to be with my teams more often, to communicate, to help make sense of things,” Chereau said.
Stellantis already started having auto engineers come back to the office more regularly in a shift earlier this year.
Now, the executives say they will broaden those plans to include R&D workers and several other roles.
Chereau also says that re-training workers to prepare for the transition to electric vehicles (EVs) is a major undertaking. The automaker is set to spend 144 million euros on retraining efforts.
Stellantis officially announced the news in a press release last week. The company also named a handful of other executives stepping into new roles.