So much for the Great Resignation and quiet quitting — it’s no longer an employee’s market. And that’s being reflected in return-to-office (RTO) policies and severance packages.
Many companies started offering flexible work arrangements, including remote and hybrid options, during the early days of the Covid-19 pandemic. But now, many of these same companies are issuing RTO orders.
And if workers don’t like it, they can leave.
Companies like Amazon, Paramount, AT&T, Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan have all enforced an RTO mandate. Microsoft — one of Big Tech’s last holdouts for return to work — is now mandating at least three days a week in the office [1].
NBCUniversal has also jumped on the RTO bandwagon, but there’s a catch: The severance package is a universal, one-size-fits-all payout. It does not give employees any additional money based on their years of service [2].
Earlier in September, NBCUniversal notified its U.S. and U.K. employees that come 2026, they must return to the office four days a week — with the option to work remotely on Friday [3].
NBCUniversal employees who don’t want to return to the office can take a flat-rate severance package of eight weeks’ salary and three months’ healthcare coverage.
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This is different from typical severance, which is tied to your years of service and the position you held. For example, you might get two weeks’ pay for every year of service, meaning the longer you’ve been with the company, the more generous the payout.
But there is no federal or state legislation that requires companies to offer severance.
Amazon, for its part, issued an ultimatum: Workers must return to the office at operation centres in Seattle, Arlington, Va., or Washington, D.C. — or resign without any severance at all [4].
Raj Namboothiry, head of staffing firm Manpower’s US division, told Business Insider that if employers start downgrading severance to one-size-fits-all or none-at-all, workers will see no advantage to staying at a company for more than a few years — and that could cost employers a lot in turnover.
