The Detroit automaker informed salaried staff in June that starting September 1, most would need to be in the office four days a week, an escalation from the three-day work weeks most people worked, according to Reuters. 

The company framed the change as part of CEO Jim Farley’s broader push to make Ford a leaner, faster-moving electric-vehicle company.

Since then, employees say Ford has begun sending automated attendance warnings based on badge-swipe data, flagging those not meeting the new requirements, according to Business Insider. 

Three current and former employees told the business news website that the emails threatened “discipline up to and including termination.” Two said they received those notices even though their in-office schedules had been cleared with managers under previous flexible arrangements.

In a companywide meeting on September 9, Homer Isaac, Ford’s human-resources director for enterprise technology, said the messages were intended to “change behavior” around remote work, according to a recording reviewed by BI. He acknowledged that the system had mistakenly targeted some compliant employees, saying those following the four-day rule “shouldn’t be worried.”

Most corporate divisions have been phasing up their in-person expectations — enterprise tech, for example, went from 13 in-office days per quarter to three days per week in August, and now four.

“We’ve asked for the communications to be fixed where they’ve missed the mark,” Isaac said, according to BI.

The shift came with logistical chaos during the August trial period, with employees describing parking shortages and overcrowded workspaces in Dearborn. Others said the rigid schedule makes cross-time-zone collaboration harder, reducing the efficiency that more hybrid-work flexibility had given them. 

The new rule comes as Ford prepares to open a 2.1-million-square-foot global headquarters in Dearborn this November, which will house about 4,000 employees. The company has framed the move as a bet on in-person collaboration to fuel innovation and performance.

That argument hasn’t quelled internal frustration. On October 2, an anonymous employee hijacked meeting-room screens across Ford’s offices with an anti-RTO protest image showing CEO Jim Farley’s face crossed out and the words “(Expletive) RTO,” according to the Detroit Free Press. The image circulated briefly on internal systems and social media before being removed.

“We’re aware of an inappropriate use of Ford’s IT systems and are investigating,” spokesperson Dave Tovar told the Detroit Free Press, adding the content was up “for a short time.”