[HN Gopher] Instagram chief orders staff back to the office five...
___________________________________________________________________
Instagram chief orders staff back to the office five days a week in
2026
Author : mfiguiere
Score : 108 points
Date : 2025-12-01 20:55 UTC (2 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.businessinsider.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.businessinsider.com)
| jawns wrote:
| The headline makes it seem like every role in the company needs
| to switch to full-time in-office.
|
| But anyone who was hired in a remote role is exempt.
|
| This order only applies to in-office workers with assigned desks.
|
| He's basically saying that they can't expect to have a hybrid
| work schedule, although not so strict that they can't ever work
| from home.
| meowface wrote:
| I'm thankful I was "grandfathered in" by starting a remote role
| pre-COVID. Honestly I wouldn't be shocked if I'm more
| productive in an office (due to pressure to seem busy, which
| correlates somewhat with amount of time actually being busy)
| but I overwhelmingly prefer remote work.
| keyle wrote:
| I'm one of the rare remote in an office where most are full
| time there and I'm there one day a week.
|
| I have no idea how they get anything done in there. I feel
| they only can focus before and after business hours.
|
| So don't be so sure. Home has distraction when the mind is
| distracted. But once working I feel we are much more
| productive and capable due to long uninterrupted stints.
|
| It does take discipline but that's what deadlines are for.
| SV_BubbleTime wrote:
| >Honestly I wouldn't be shocked if I'm more productive in an
| office (due to pressure to seem busy, which correlates
| somewhat with amount of time actually being busy)
|
| As a hiring manager, I appreciate the honesty and nuance.
| There is so much bullshit about remote work from the people
| doing it that it's a little too much "doth protest".
|
| "I get so much more work done and I cracked the code to
| productivity, and surely no one would abuse this system,
| especially not you ultra worker 5000. Anyone who disagrees
| with me is a threat to the oversightless system I have an I
| must try and protect this by attacking them."
| interpol_p wrote:
| Depends what you see as "abusing" the system. By working
| from home, I can take a walk in the garden when I find it
| hard to think, it energises me. At my office I can (and do)
| take a walk in the car park, but inevitably I leave the
| office with a headache caused by constant noise and
| fluorescent lighting
|
| At home, I can put my family first if needed. When I'm at
| the office and something comes up at the kids' school that
| I need to deal with, it's a mad dash to get away soon
| enough that I almost have to drop everything and run
|
| The times working in the office has been good as a software
| engineer: when we are prototyping on physical hardware I do
| not have at home. That's it
|
| It's great if people love to go to the office. That's fine.
| It's managers that enforce it who are the problem -- the
| people who work for you aren't children and if you feel
| like you can't trust them to make the decision to work from
| home, why on earth would you trust them in your office?
| Arainach wrote:
| Exempt temporarily. Very temporarily.
|
| This is a standard boiling the frog playbook:
|
| * No more remote hires
|
| * Mandate non-remote employees into office (Instagram is here)
|
| * Mandate remote employees who live within X miles of office
| return to office (significant chunks of Alphabet, etc. are
| here)
|
| etc. - this will get ramped up and very soon
| cowboyscott wrote:
| > the change applies to employees in US offices with assigned
| desks and is part of a broader push to make Instagram "more
| nimble and creative" as competition intensifies.
|
| I don't think RTO or fewer meetings is going to reverse or even
| slow Instagram's slide down the enshittification chute. I
| recently returned to the app to connect with some friends and
| local communities, but the density of ads and dark patterns is
| pushing me away. IMO Instagram and Facebook in their twilight
| (which will still last another decade or so), where the path
| forward has more to due with extracting the remaining value from
| their existing users rather than outcompeting the alternatives.
| trollbridge wrote:
| I'm actually grateful I don't need to worry about marketing via
| Instagram anymore.
| jrjeksjd8d wrote:
| I'm shutting down my retail business and being able to delete
| Instagram is a huge win.
| RankingMember wrote:
| > I don't think RTO or fewer meetings is going to reverse or
| even slow Instagram's slide down the enshittification chute.
|
| In my view it's been well down that chute since shortly after
| its acquisition by Facebook. Facebook bought them as a hedge as
| young people left the FB platform and, for a time, it's worked
| to keep users under the Meta umbrella, but as with everything
| Zucc touches, the end-user experience has been in a state of
| steady degradation.
| sunaookami wrote:
| It's also impressive how fast Zuckerberg ruined Threads, does
| anyone still uses this? Does it still keep reverting to the
| algorithmic timeline?
| RankingMember wrote:
| Ha, I completely forgot about it already- that's how
| quickly it became irrelevant.
| SV_BubbleTime wrote:
| I'd like a retrospective on "if you don't like what
| Twitter is doing, you can build your own"... because it
| seems network effects are real, despite Facebook money.
| mmahd7456 wrote:
| The only reason I don't forget it is because they
| advertise on Instagram.
| Traubenfuchs wrote:
| It's still being pushed via... "ads" in between stories or
| posts where you see a sneak peek of a Threads post you
| might like.
| k12sosse wrote:
| In Canada meta pushed back (by not letting you link to or
| summarize recognized free press news sites) due to laws
| designed to encourage sharing revenue with news organizations
| for copying their content and posting it without their consent.
| The result has been a total vacuum of truth, and the platform
| is literally a anti-vax, agarthan racists wet dream when you
| open it up as a new user. It's ripe for replacement. I can't
| believe it's lasted this long.
| loeg wrote:
| > laws designed to encourage sharing revenue with news
| organizations for copying their content
|
| By "encourage" and "copying," you mean "require" and
| "linking" respectively. These second order effects were
| entirely predictable before the legislation was passed.
| defrost wrote:
| > agarthan racists wet dream
|
| That one slipped my by in recent years, I'm not keeping up
| with the rebranding of rocks the nazi bars keep hiding under.
|
| ~ https://felixonline.co.uk/articles/slurs-hatred-and-nazi-
| ufo...
|
| I'm not sure the self description as "Light hearted, mostly
| satirical Nazi white supremacist content not to be taken
| seriously" really hides the moustache.
| LikesPwsh wrote:
| The stated purpose of RTO may be more-nimble-whatever.
|
| In practice it makes more sense if you always assume the
| intended purpose is to thinly veil constructive dismissal.
| kirykl wrote:
| The whole memo just reeks of not trusting your employees.
| RankingMember wrote:
| These memos are always basically admissions of their own
| incompetence. If you distrust your employees this much and have
| created a culture where people aren't getting their work done
| without it being noticed, that's on you.
| netsharc wrote:
| Isn't it a "we want to reduce our workforce but we don't want
| to pay redundancies, so we're hoping many of you leave
| 'voluntarily'.".
| fullshark wrote:
| Well I don't trust my employer so...
| eutropia wrote:
| Instagram chief orders quiet layoffs to please investors in 2026
|
| fixed that title for you
| SV_BubbleTime wrote:
| You think _this_ is the tech job market to leave your job, and
| then what? Try and get in at someone else about to return to
| office? Freelance? IDK about anyone else, but I haven't
| considered a contractor since AI Coding hit hard, I had poor
| experience with contractors anyhow, now I'm not sure I see the
| point of rolling those dice again.
|
| It's kind of a soft market unless you are working directly on
| AI models.
|
| So, is this IG looking to cut fat by keeping what they
| considered the most committed employees? Maybe. Is it because
| most of us can admit that it takes the right people to work
| remotely and that isn't a majority? That's more my take.
| misiek08 wrote:
| We are observing the most valuable people leaving, because
| they easily can get a job at place where they care more about
| value you get to company than the bonus you will get as
| C-level after firing highly paid workers.
|
| In the cases we know (I have a group of people working in
| different small and medium corps in Poland and Germany) - the
| people that are staying are either too lazy to change work or
| they are just not enough to get remote job.
| johnnyanmac wrote:
| >You think this is the tech job market to leave your job, and
| then what?
|
| 1. take that time to startup that business you've been
| thinking of doing
|
| 2. Coast on the months of savings and years of stock until
| things get better. Perhaps you even have enough for a soft
| retirement.
|
| 3. try to rapidly interview and hope you have a ship to jump
| to before the hammer comes down.
|
| 4. interview anyway because you know this means a layoff
| round is coming even if you wanted to move because not enough
| people quit on their own.
|
| > is this IG looking to cut fat by keeping what they
| considered the most committed employees
|
| If by "committed" you mean "most compensated", then yes.
|
| >Is it because most of us can admit that it takes the right
| people to work remotely and that isn't a majority? That's
| more my take.
|
| Sure, maybe. But Meta knows that isn't the reason. They lost
| the BOTD since 2017 in my eyes.
| op00to wrote:
| This is the _exact_ tech job market to start looking and have
| interviews /offers scheduled so you're not screwed when
| layoffs happen.
| paxys wrote:
| And the employees most likely to quit will be ones with
| responsibilities that make it difficult to do the commute 5
| days a week - kids to pick up from daycare, health issues to
| manage, a social life in the evenings, travel plans - basically
| the exact category that a company like Meta would want to
| replace with a younger, more exploitable bunch.
| almost_usual wrote:
| No point in quitting, reduce workload.
|
| If leadership needs to manage folks out make them do the work
| and collect a paycheck while it happens.
| JoshTriplett wrote:
| > And the employees most likely to quit will be ones with
| responsibilities that make it difficult to do the commute 5
| days a week
|
| Or senior people who have a dozen offers waiting in their
| inbox that they've neglected responding to because they're
| reasonably happy where they are...until the prospect of
| commuting.
| parliament32 wrote:
| > pick up from daycare, health issues to manage, a social
| life in the evenings, travel plans
|
| You're not going to like hearing this, but this shit on
| company hours is exactly why RTO is being pushed.
| carlm42 wrote:
| It's called a work-life balance. I know, crazy idea.
| parliament32 wrote:
| 99% of the working class goes to work, gets paid for
| their hours there, then goes home. Imagine if your
| mailman or bus driver dipped mid-shift every day for a
| few hours because "my kids need to get picked up from
| daycare".
|
| Throughout hundreds-to-thousands of years of history your
| options have been 1) get a housewife, or 2) get a nanny.
| Covid was fun, I get it, but that was a long time ago
| man.
| jfindper wrote:
| > _Covid was fun, I get it, but that was a long time ago
| man._
|
| I don't understand what you gain from trying to be super
| abrasive on a forum. Is it fun?
| roadside_picnic wrote:
| > Throughout hundreds-to-thousands of years of history
| your options have been
|
| You might want to brush up on your anthropology a bit.
| ribosometronome wrote:
| >Throughout hundreds-to-thousands of years of history ...
| but that was a long time ago man.
|
| This seems like a self defeating argument.
| jfindper wrote:
| Or, just maybe I'm doing the daycare and social life and
| whatever in the spare time I have from no longer commuting
| (~2 hours extra a day for me).
| paxys wrote:
| There have never been "company hours" in tech. Until
| recently asking your manager what time you were expected to
| come in and leave would be met with blank stares. "We don't
| enforce set hours here, just get your work done". And
| conversely "I worked 8 hours a day" is never going to be
| accepted as an excuse when you fail to meet your targets at
| the end of the quarter. Simply put - they are hiring you
| for your skills and your output, not for warming a seat at
| an office for 8 hours a day. Tech companies have treated
| employees like adults and expected adult behavior in
| return. Sadly it seems like the new crop of tech leadership
| seems adamant on making their companies more like a call
| center.
| kkolybacz wrote:
| "We're also offering the option to transfer from the MPK to SF
| office for those people whose commute would be the same or better
| with that change."
|
| So wait, you'll be able to switch offices even though your team
| might be in the second one? What's the benefit of working remote
| from your team but next to random, noisy people?
| SpicyLemonZest wrote:
| They most likely have a long-term plan to realign team
| boundaries with office locations, but want to minimize the
| short-term disruption for people who've moved around the Bay
| Area based on current working schedules.
| kkolybacz wrote:
| Yeah, that might be the long-term idea, but most likely it
| will take multiple quarters of internal mobilities to achieve
| the final shape during which they're forcing people to come
| to the office and having all meetings and team interactions
| on a call. Suboptimal decision in my opinion.
| threetonesun wrote:
| Isn't this the same story for every moderately large
| company that did RTO over the last few years? It's not
| about efficiency, it's about shaking out some people by
| forcing them back into an office.
|
| Around 2023 I was working at a company that was, at the
| time, just threatening RTO, and when hiring we had to
| decide if it was worth it to hire someone who (might)
| report to a different office in a different time zone.
| Which was not an issue at all a month before, when the
| company was still committed to being fully remote. The
| hours talking about it were a waste of my life for what, in
| the end, didn't even matter because they laid off most of
| the team six months later.
| SpicyLemonZest wrote:
| The concern is reasonable, but I'm not sure there's a great
| way to make people act as though RTO is happening other
| than actually doing the RTO. A number of companies never
| said remote work was going to be long-term in the first
| place, yet still had employees moving around randomly based
| on an assumption that peak Covid norms were the new status
| quo.
| no_wizard wrote:
| To what end? This achieves exactly what for teams?
| SpicyLemonZest wrote:
| As the memo says, it achieves "Building a Winning Culture";
| Mosseri's judgment is that "we are more creative and
| collaborative when we are together in-person".
| closeparen wrote:
| I doubt it. A company that is doing RTO is also a company
| that is aggressively offshoring and expecting you to spend
| your early mornings/late nights on IST friendly calls. It's
| just a general turn against US-based software engineers as
| belts tighten and the balance of power in the labor market
| shifts.
| dexwiz wrote:
| I interviewed there in 2024. Said no because they said I would
| have to commute from SF to Menlo Park 4 days a week. They
| explicitly said I could not work from the SF office before I
| even asked.
| kvirani wrote:
| Do you think that was a hiring manager specific preference or
| an overall HR policy thing? Shitty nonetheless.
| dexwiz wrote:
| It was before matching so I am guessing overall HR policy.
| bradlys wrote:
| A ton of teams are already distributed. The RTO makes no sense
| unless your team is already mostly in one office but that's not
| how a lot of teams are.
|
| Tons of team are completely split up across multiple
| states/timezones.
|
| I think IG might be more local teams than distributed but I'm
| not sure.
| akudha wrote:
| One of the teams at my workplace has 5 members in 5 different
| offices. They're still forced to come to office and attend
| calls via Microsoft Teams from their respective offices than
| from their homes.
|
| These are reasons I can think of - they want to prevent
| people from doing second job, they want to maintain
| commercial real estate prices (even if it is artificially
| propped up) or most likely, it is just the good old ego thing
| ("you work for me, I make you do things just because I can").
| bradlys wrote:
| Ego/pet project/appearance of doing something as an
| executive is probably the main driver.
|
| A lot of these decisions have very little quality data
| behind them.
| paxys wrote:
| Pre-covid - an entire working team is clustered in the same
| office and have desks near each other. People collaborate via
| in-person meetings, hallway conversations and general
| proximity.
|
| During covid - hiring is mostly remote since companies figure
| they don't have to be constrained by geography anymore.
| Employees work at home and collaborate over Zoom meetings. It's
| difficult at first but everyone adjusts. Productivity is
| _allegedly_ lower, partly due to the remote nature, partly
| because employees are slacking off.
|
| Now - employers start mandating return to office. Teams are
| still distributed, so rather than collaborating via physical
| proximity employees have to spend their day trying to find
| meeting rooms and sitting on Zoom, just in the office instead
| of their homes.
|
| Is the company actually more productive now? Some McKinsey
| consultant has a slide deck showing that it has gone up from
| 6.5 to 7.2, so the bosses all pat themselves on the back.
| kobieps wrote:
| I literally had a customer decline a meeting today with this
| as the reason:
|
| "Couldnt find a proper space to conduct the meeting"
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| Literally doesn't matter to the people making these
| decisions. It's unfortunate.
| dexwiz wrote:
| I work in a post Covid office and even with about 1 to 6
| ratio of desks to rooms, along just as many fart pods, it can
| be a struggle to find space during peak hours.
| roadside_picnic wrote:
| > Pre-covid - an entire working team is clustered in the same
| office
|
| Just a reminder that there were plenty of great distributed
| teams long before Covid. I had had only a few "in office"
| jobs in my pre-covid career (and generally found
| collaboration _better_ on remote teams, though goofing off
| has a bit harder to organize).
|
| I also find it funny that somehow software engineers
| completely forget about the existence of open source software
| which worked in a more extremely distributed fashion than any
| remote company I've worked for at a time when IRC and email
| where the only tools for remote communication. Most of the
| most used and most successful software was written by
| globally distributed teams that only met face to face every
| few _years_ if ever.
|
| This timeline you are presenting applies only to _large
| corporate_ jobs, where my experience has been "work
| productivity" always takes a back seat to organizational
| theater.
| closeparen wrote:
| It's mystifying, but pretty much the entire tech leadership
| class has a deep conviction that taking Zoom calls on Airpods
| from your desk or a random corner of the office is the ideal
| way of working.
| mso3i wrote:
| There is no tech leadership class.
|
| Things have to stay stable long enough for a leadership class
| to emerge. In tech that is not possible. They are just leaves
| in the wind.
| subulaz wrote:
| i understood that reference... and, like Wash, feel like
| i'm "flying" a stone at gravity's whim while i pretend to
| be in control. tech leadership at a lot of corps do the
| exact same thing most days. a good reason to find your
| tribe asap, get out of corp, and assert some control.
| paxys wrote:
| Not true anymore. Every large tech company is now filled to
| the brim with career managers.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _What 's the benefit of working remote from your team but
| next to random, noisy people?_
|
| You'll cross-pollinate across functions. Or at least increase
| the chances of that happening. Not saying that's worth the
| tradeoff. But my time in the office often finds serendipitious
| value in random off-team conversations, not scheduled time.
| bigmattystyles wrote:
| I think you're going to get downvoted to oblivion but as far
| as I'm concerned, that's been my impression as well.
| wmeredith wrote:
| This is the huge benefit of in-person work. Personally I've
| not found it worth the tradeoffs, but it cannot be
| discounted.
| roadside_picnic wrote:
| > What's the benefit of working remote from your team but next
| to random, noisy people?
|
| The illusion of control? I mean we can pretend we don't know
| what this is about (well it's probably also about encouraging a
| reduction in force), but we do know right?
|
| By _far_ the people who bemoaned working from home the most
| were people whose job doesn 't typically involve any actual
| "work". Not saying that there weren't exceptions, but the vast
| majority of working engineers I knew rejoiced in finally
| getting heads down time, while everyone whose job is primarily
| "performance for leadership" hated how difficult it was to
| perform visible theatrics on a camera.
|
| Especially in large orgs "leadership" and "team success" are
| largely about optics. Being _seen_ working in the office late
| is so much more important than _getting any actual work done_.
| It 's only in small companies where _actually shipping_
| something has any value at all.
|
| What I don't understand is why we still pretend like this is a
| mystery. Recognizing this I've completely avoided working for
| large orgs, and continue to enjoy remote work we're I can be
| valued for the results of what I build (well there's always _a
| little_ theater) over office productivity performativity.
| LogicFailsMe wrote:
| Sure, you're still effectively working remotely by being in two
| different offices, but The vibes are totally changed and the
| seats are warmer now with all those asses in them! and yes, yes
| your boss is working from some expensive resort in Tahiti and
| the CEO is in an undisclosed location on his yacht, but they're
| totally on board!
| pbreit wrote:
| How do you know they are random or noisy?
| fHr wrote:
| Just a move to get rid of people, some people won't do the RTO
| and they can easily let them go.
| fHr wrote:
| Trying to date as a single men in my 20s... 95% of women in their
| 20s seem to have it and then ask you if you have one or connect
| with her or stay in touch on it.... shitty ad infested bloatware
| gambling/pron promoting pos application I wish I could get rid of
| yesterday. Don't hate the player, hate the game.
| m_a_g wrote:
| The comment initially confused me, but after reading it twice,
| I completely agree with you.
|
| I would love to delete the app, but Instagram has really become
| the norm for dating and connecting with people. The opportunity
| cost of not using it in your 20s is significant. I hope to
| delete it once I'm fully settled, but that might not happen
| anytime soon given the modern dating culture.
|
| Sometimes, I wish I could live like the Amish.
| saos wrote:
| > I would love to delete the app, but Instagram has really
| become the norm for dating and connecting with people
|
| Really??
| seanmcau wrote:
| No, this is not true.
| johnnyanmac wrote:
| News to me. But I just left my 20's so maybe I'm late off
| the boat.
|
| I'm not installing anything Meta for any potential date.
| maybe Twitter but that's already pushing it.
| projektfu wrote:
| When you have a real LTR they become jealous of you being on
| it.
| xnx wrote:
| How independently does Instagram operate from Meta?
| laweijfmvo wrote:
| other divisions within Meta have recently made similar changes
| --- more time in office, less meetings. i'm guessing the orders
| are coming from the top but they're allowing each org to roll
| out the changes "independently"
| saos wrote:
| Basically soft layoff
| KaiserPro wrote:
| Another winning call from Mosseri
|
| After shitcanning the london office because he wanted to move
| back home(800 people gone) hes now doing the RTO, because as we
| know all the cool kids love working in the office.
|
| The problem with instagram is not where people are working, its
| the culture of piss poor direction setting and no user experience
| advocates. Well none that are being listened to.
|
| There are too many grand initiatives, which are poorly run, never
| really prototyped and just yeeted into years long slog that
| fuckup repeatedly (shops I'm looking at you)
|
| Then to get a promotion you need to move a metric somehow. That
| means doing stupid user hostile stuff, like instantly shoving
| tits in your face.
|
| Don't get me started on the horror that was instagram for kids
| decimalenough wrote:
| > Don't get me started on the horror that was instagram for
| kids
|
| Please do get started. Is this an actual thing they/you were
| building?
| acheron wrote:
| They mean the office in the Metaverse, right?
| wrs wrote:
| OK, so... Employees are compelled to go into the office, so they
| can have better in-person collaboration. They are also encouraged
| not to go to meetings (aka in-person collaboration sessions), so
| they can have more focus time.
|
| I haven't seen the Insta offices, but I would bet they don't have
| walls. In which case, you know where the best focus time is to be
| had? Out of the office.
| vjvjvjvjghv wrote:
| 5 days is stupid. I am fully remote and I can see how face time
| is important. After a few years remote I am definitely feeling a
| little detached from the company. But 5 days makes no sense. I
| think 2 or 3 days in the office is perfect. You get the
| opportunity to talk to people and you have days where you can
| fully focus.
|
| Most ridiculous is to have to come to the office and then talk to
| your distributed team members over Teams or Slack. Even more fun
| is to have them spread around the globe in different time zones .
| gorgoiler wrote:
| I know better than to think I might have anything useful to add
| to the WFH debate, but buried further in the memo:
|
| _"More demos, less [sic] decks"_
|
| I love it, but I'm surprised that an org of that caliber needs to
| say it out loud. Even the top tier people get bogged down in
| PowerPoint limbo, I guess?
|
| Nothing is more compelling than, as they say in show business (ie
| that Bill O'Reilly meme), than saying "f*** it...":
| (+deg#deg)+ +----+ WE'LL DO IT LIVE!
| GiorgioG wrote:
| Layoffs by another name.
| OGEnthusiast wrote:
| It's unfortunate there wasn't more resistance by tech employees
| to RTO post-covid. It seemed like one of the very, very rare
| solutions to the systemic problems of housing and commuting in
| the US. I don't think it's an exaggeration to say that WFH
| effectively doubles or even triples your total compensation when
| it means (a) actually affordable housing and (b) no time/money
| lost to commuting, especially if you have kids.
| paxys wrote:
| Because these mandates coincided with a recession and the worst
| tech job market in a couple decades, and saying no meant you'd
| potentially be unemployed for a very long time.
| wilg wrote:
| I think its okay for there to be jobs that require you to be in a
| specific place, especially so if you were hired under such an
| arrangement originally. If there is a significant advantage for
| companies that are remote, then they will have a significant
| advantage on talent.
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2025-12-01 23:00 UTC)