Walmart To Cut Jobs, Ask Remote Workers To Return To Offices

(Bloomberg) -- Walmart Inc. is axing hundreds of corporate jobs and asking most remote workers to return to offices.

Employees in smaller offices in Dallas, Atlanta and Toronto are being asked to switch to bigger hubs. Most relocations will be to the retail giant’s corporate headquarters in Bentonville, Arkansas, where Walmart is building a 350-acre campus. But some employees will be able to work from offices in the San Francisco Bay Area or in Hoboken, New Jersey.

Staff will still be allowed to do their jobs remotely and part-time as long as they’re in offices the majority of the time, according to a person familiar with the move, who was unauthorized to speak publicly on the matter.

The company sent out a memo to its employees on Tuesday, urging workers to come back to offices in a bid to drive collaboration. 

“We believe that being together, in person, makes us better and helps us to collaborate, innovate and move even faster. We also believe it helps strengthen our culture as well as grow and develop our associates,” Donna Morris, Walmart’s chief people officer said in the memo.

Morris said the company made the decision to ask staff to come back to offices in February 2022, but wants to bring “more of us together more often.” 

Companies around the world are encouraging employees, whose commutes were reshaped by the pandemic, to return to offices. Walmart, the world’s biggest retailer, is also the largest private employer in the US and operates some 4,600 stores domestically. 

The Wall Street Journal first reported the staffing changes.

(Updates with company memo.)

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