- Roblox’s CEO David Baszucki said staff must return to its San Mateo office three days a week by next summer.
- The gaming giant is known for creating virtual experiences and went fully remote in March 2020.
- Staff who choose not to relocate will have to take a severance package.
Roblox, the $19 billion gaming giant known for creating virtual experiences, has ordered employees back to the office three days a week or take a severance package, to move away from remote working.
Roblox’s founder and CEO David Baszucki wrote in a blog post on Tuesday that it expects remote employees to return to its headquarters in San Mateo, California by summer 2024. The company went fully remote in March 2020 at the start of the pandemic.
“As the pandemic stretched on, several companies announced that they would support 100 percent remote work for everyone, forever,” Baszucki wrote in the post. “During this time we had numerous deep discussions and we kept coming back to the notion that, ultimately, Roblox is an innovation company and we needed to get back to working in person.”
The mandate requires remote staff to start coming to the office Tuesdays to Thursdays by January 16. Those needing to move have until July 15 and will receive assistance for relocation costs.
Employees who choose not to relocate have until April 15 to leave the company and will get a severance package according to their level, as well as six months of healthcare coverage.
Baszucki explained the decision came about because virtual workspaces were not as effective as physical spaces.
He wrote: “For many of us, ‘Zoom fatigue’ is real. A three-hour group review in person is much less exhausting than over video and brainstorming sessions are more fluid and creative. While I’m confident we will get to a point where virtual workspaces are as engaging, collaborative, and productive as physical spaces, we aren’t there yet.”
Roblox is an advocate of the metaverse and its chief technology officer, Daniel Sturman, previously told Insider that it wanted to build on its 3D games and virtual experiences. The company was also hiring for hundreds of roles that mentioned the metaverse at the time.
Roblox is just one of the tech giants that have walked back their remote working policies. Google and Meta told staff to return to the office three days a week, while Elon Musk quickly ended Twitter’s remote working policies after taking control of the company now called X in October 2022.
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