Walmart is reportedly asking most remote workers to move to offices and consolidating corporate staff in smaller offices to its headquarters.
In a memo sent to employees Tuesday from Chief People Officer Donna Morris, the retailer giant said that changes in some parts of its business “will result in a reduction of several hundred campus roles.”
“While the overall numbers are small in percentage, we are focused on supporting each of our associates affected by these changes,” the memo read.
According to the memo, obtained and published by multiple media outlets, “the majority” of associates who work remotely and in offices in Dallas, Atlanta, and Toronto will have to move to company headquarters in Bentonville, Arkansas. Some other staffers will go to corporate offices in New York or San Francisco metropolitan areas.
“In February 2022, we made the decision to bring Home Office associates back into our campus offices,” the memo read. “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.”
Walmart said those affected by layoffs have been informed of the decision and that they “will work closely with them in the coming days and months to navigate the best path forward.”
The company did not respond to The Epoch Times’ questions regarding the reason for the layoffs, the exact number of people who were affected, or what positions they held.
Walmart is building a new home office campus with 12 office buildings on 350 acres in Bentonville. The construction began in 2019, and the company said on its website that the new facilities are expected to open in phases through 2025.
“We plan to bring most of the Home Office associates in Northwest Arkansas onto this central campus,” the retail giant said.
Last year, Walmart closed its tech offices in Austin, Texas; Portland, Oregon; and Carlsbad, California. It said at that time that the closure of the three offices was a location strategy and told hundreds of employees to either keep their jobs by relocating to the Bentonville headquarters or a different hub or leave the company entirely.
More recently, in late April, Walmart announced it would shut down all 51 of its Walmart Health clinics along with its virtual medical care services, a sudden turnaround from its previously announced plans to expand this initiative.
“Through our experience managing Walmart Health centers and Walmart Health Virtual Care, we determined there is not a sustainable business model for us to continue,” company executives announced in a press release.
Walmart Health was launched in 2019 and has since expanded to 51 facilities in five states. The clinics provided a range of in-person services including primary care, labs, x-ray and diagnostics, same-day primary care, behavioral health, dental and community health, as well as virtual visits.
“This is a difficult decision, and like others, the challenging reimbursement environment and escalating operating costs create a lack of profitability that make the care business unsustainable for us at this time,” Walmart said.
Walmart is also among a growing list of high-profile employers that are doing away with work-from-home policies, which became popular during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Other notable examples include Amazon, which demanded that all employees work at the office for at least three days a week, starting from May 2023; and Starbucks, whose chief executive, Howard Schultz, announced last March a return-to-office mandate for all corporate employees. Elon Musk, an outspoken critic of the remote work culture, demanded Tesla staff return to the office before doing the same to those working at Twitter, now rebranded as X following his takeover.
