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Fidelity prepares to double required in-office time for most workers

Fidelity Investments, one of the largest employers in Boston, will require many employees to spend two out of every four weeks working in-person starting in September.

A Fidelity Investments branch in Boston. Charles Krupa/AP

February 20, 2024

One of the largest employers in Boston, Fidelity Investments, will soon require employees to increase their time working from the office instead of at home.

Starting in September, “most associates” will have to come into the office for two weeks out of every four, a Fidelity spokesperson said Tuesday.

Currently, Fidelity requires one out of every four weeks to be in-person, Boston Business Journal reported.

“Fidelity’s approach to working blends onsite and offsite work. It provides associates with the time they need to work offsite while maximizing time onsite together — creating new ways to thrive at work while balancing work and life needs,” the spokesperson said in a statement. “Since the beginning of the pandemic, the gradual evolution of Fidelity’s return-to-office approach has been grounded in its goal of creating an experience that balances both associate and business needs.”

Fidelity, which has offices across the world, is headquartered in Boston. At the end of 2023, its Boston office employed 5,860 people, according to the spokesperson.

In 2022, Fidelity ranked as the tenth-largest employer in the city, with 0.75% of Boston’s total employment, according to a report from city officials.

The Fidelity spokesperson said that the company knows both the merits of working from home and how “onsite work allows for opportunities for connections between people and teams to build lasting relationships that help to fuel both individual growth and collective success.”

Employees have given feedback to managers in favor of maintaining some sort of hybrid schedule, while Fidelity offices have seen a “steady increase in onsite presence,” the spokesperson said.

When the pandemic set in nearly four years ago, working from home became the norm for millions of Americans. Hybrid schedules have remained popular in the years since, but the degree to which employees are allowed to work from home varies wildly by company in Massachusetts and across the country.

More and more managers are pushing for employees to spend more time in the office, sometimes causing significant friction. A study released last month from research and consulting firm Gartner found that three specific types of employees are more likely to leave their companies when opportunities to work from home decrease: high-performing employees, millennials, and women.

A nationwide survey from Robin, a Boston-based software firm that works with companies to manage desk and room booking, found that offices are shrinking while return-to-office mandates are increasing. Results show that 88% of employers in 2023 expected workers to spend some time in a physical office during the week, up from 69% in 2022. At the same time, 75% of employers expect space reductions this year, up from 46% who said they had such expectations for 2023.

“It looks like an opposing trend but it’s really not,” Micah Remley, Robin’s chief executive, told the Globe. “Over the past year, we’re finally seeing companies have a vision of what they want to accomplish in their office space and they’re putting those plans into action … Three-plus years into it, they’re saying now we know what the future is: … a flexible office space deeply focused on collaboration.”

Gallup found last year that working in-person for two or three days a week “resulted in the best outcomes for employee engagement,” while outcomes were worse for those forced to work in-person five days a week.

When asked why they may not want to return to the office, the top reason workers give is that they do not like their commute. The average one-way commute for American workers rose 10% between 2006 and 2019, according to Gallup. Longer commutes are associated with high blood pressure, anger, stiff necks, fatigue, back pain, obesity, and “poorer overall wellbeing.”

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