3M informed employees in a Monday email they will need to be in the office four days a week starting in September, ending five years of remote flexibility born from the pandemic.
It’s also the latest example of a major Minnesota employer tightening the reins on remote-work flexibility in recent years. Ameriprise, Medtronic, U.S. Bank and state employees are now expected in the office at least a few days a week, while General Mills and Target have recalled certain employees for mandatory office days.
“I believe our ability to engage, collaborate and innovate is stronger in person,” CEO Bill Brown wrote to company leaders in an email the Star Tribune obtained. “The value of working in the office is that it allows leaders to demonstrate our performance culture and to reinforce priorities and focus areas in real-time, with speed and urgency, throughout the organization.”
The Maplewood-based manufacturer began its “Work Your Way” policy in 2020, allowing office employees to work fully remote. The flexibility lasted longer than hybrid work policies at many other Fortune 500 companies, and 3M boasted it was a “talent differentiator” as recently as spring 2024.
Then the company called senior leaders back to the office three days a week last fall, with other employees encouraged but not required to report in for “collaboration days” on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays.
Brown told managers in the email this new change “builds upon the momentum and energy created by the implementation of Collaboration Days and will continue to help … embed 3M excellence” across the company’s global enterprise.
The company said in a statement Tuesday that time in the office allows “teams to be present and engage on a personal level both within and outside of meetings.”
3M’s tens of thousands of manufacturing employees worldwide will continue to work in person at factories as they have since the pandemic began. The company will still allow distant remote workers to log in from home. Nationwide, about 20% of the white-collar workforce is fully remote, while 46% work on a hybrid schedule, according to WFH Research.
