Bill Pugliano/Getty Images
- Ford ordered the majority of its employees back to the office four days a week in September.Before the new policy came in, some workers got emails warning they may be fired if they didn't badge in more.Multiple employees said they got the emails despite complying with remote working rules at the time.
Ford is the latest company to crack down on working from home — and some employees say they've been told they could be terminated if they don't comply.
In June, the Detroit automaker told employees that they would be required to come into the office four days a week from September 1, with Ford saying the move would help boost growth as the company battles to transform itself into an affordable EV powerhouse.
Since then, Ford has sent some employees emails telling them that they are not badging in enough and warning that they could face termination if they do not improve their attendance, three current and former Ford employees told Business Insider.
Two said they had received these emails despite complying with updated office attendance policies and having previous work-from-home arrangements signed off by their managers.
While many of Ford's Michigan-based teams have been in the office three days a week since late 2024, other divisions maintained a more flexible approach to working from home, two current and former employees said.
JEFF KOWALSKY/AFP via Getty Images
In an all-hands for a team within Ford's Enterprise Technology division — which oversees Ford's IT services and internal digital tools — on September 9, human resources director Homer Isaac said the tone of the emails was designed to instigate a "change of behavior" around remote working.
In a recording of the all-hands viewed by Business Insider, Isaac said the fact that the enterprise technology division had previously had more lenient rules on remote working meant that some employees may have received the emails despite complying with pre-existing working-from-home arrangements.
He said that the company was aware that employees who had been "doing the things that you were supposed to" have been "caught up in a lot of that noise," adding that workers who are complying with the new four-day-a-week rules should not be concerned about losing their jobs.
"Most of the company went back to three days a week back in the fourth quarter of last year. [Enterprise technology] had 13 days a quarter, and then progressed in August to three days a week, and now four days a week, which is the official policy in September," said Isaac.
"The letters up to this point, quite honestly, were based on a window where our standard wasn't the same as everybody else's standard. The communications are standard, and I will pledge to this team, we have asked for those to be changed or modified — we have failed in that," he said.
'Flexibility is a two-way street'
In the days after Ford announced the return-to-office mandate on June 25, certain employees received an email saying that their badge data indicated their "on-site presence since April 2025 has averaged less than one day a week," and was not in line with company expectations that hybrid workers come in three days a week.
These initial automated emails warned that not meeting these new expectations would be considered a "policy violation," according to copies of the emails viewed by Business Insider.
One former Ford employee told Business Insider that despite their pre-June remote working arrangements being approved by senior management and complying with the three-day-a-week requirement, they continued to receive automated emails saying that their on-site presence had not improved.
These subsequent emails warned that failure to comply with the new policy of four days a week on-site from September would result in "discipline up to and including termination."
"We need to work across time zones, and the new policy makes that impossible. People are working to the rule and are no longer willing to put in extra time outside normal hours. Flexibility is a two-way street," said the employee, who recently left the company.
Another current Ford employee told Business Insider they had also received a similar email warning that failing to comply with the new remote working rules could result in termination, despite going into the office the required number of days.
"I'm tired and exhausted. I just want to do my job and help the company, but upper management is constantly making that harder to do, and then telling me I'm the problem," they said.
A source with knowledge of the emails told Business Insider that some employees may have received one or more notices incorrectly.
They added that non-compliant employees were identified via an automated HR system that required managers to confirm whether they had taken vacation or sick leave, or if they had a pre-existing remote working agreement, before they were sent a warning.
A bumpy road to RTO
Like many companies, Ford's return to office hasn't been entirely smooth. Employees Business Insider spoke to mentioned teething problems and overcrowding, with one calling an RTO trial run in August "a little bit disastrous" due to a lack of desks and parking.
The employee said that the overcrowding issues have now been mostly "smoothed out," but added that the way the process had been handled had hurt morale.
Bill Pugliano/Getty Images
A source with knowledge of the situation said that limited parking had been an issue, with some employees forced to triple-park and Ford running a shuttle service for workers at some offices.
Hybrid IT employees were also told to begin coming into Ford's Dearborn site three days a week on August 6, according to interviews with employees and an email viewed by Business Insider.
In comments posted on an internal Ford forum on that day, employees complained that the site's Rotunda center had run out of parking and that police had shown up to ticket workers parked illegally. A Ford employee BI spoke to confirmed that police had attended.
Ford is opening a 2.1 million-square-foot new world headquarters in Dearborn in November. The company says it will have capacity for around 4,000 employees.
Last week, frustration over Ford's return-to-office policy bubbled over in a highly public fashion when a number of meeting room displays at the company's Dearborn site began displaying a crossed-out image of CEO Jim Farley with an explicit anti-RTO message.
"We have done everything we can to make sure our employees understand the in-office policy, and we have given everyone time to adjust their schedules and work with their managers to make sure they are in compliance," a Ford spokesperson told Business Insider.
Have a tip? Contact this reporter via email at tcarter@businessinsider.com or Signal at tcarter.41. Use a personal email address, a nonwork WiFi network, and a nonwork device; here's our guide to sharing information securely.
