Better catering and nicer bathrooms will help get workers back to the office, says this retail CEO

It’s “not always as efficient” to work remotely, Asda chair Stuart Rose said. 

Stuart Rose, chair of grocery store Asda and a veteran of British retail, says the company will improve bathroom facilities and on-site food as it mandates a return to the office for corporate staff.

Rose, who has also held leadership roles at major UK retailers Marks & Spencer, Argos, and Topshop, said last week that from January, all Asda corporate staff must be in the office three days a week.

After the announcement, Rose said in an interview with The Observer that having too many staff based at home was “not a satisfactory way of working,” particularly in a “fast-moving consumer goods industry.”

“It’s not always as efficient with those teams working together in terms of online, in terms of Zoom calls,” he told the outlet.

Asda said it will “improve the working environment” in its offices as part of the RTO push.

That includes “a better catering offer, an on-site Asda Express, a more welcoming atrium, more meeting spaces, quiet-space working pods, upgraded toilets, new chairs and redecoration.”

A spokesperson confirmed to B-17 that in November, the grocery chain cut 475 management roles and announced a major restructuring amid slowing sales.

Rose has taken on a leading role in Asda’s transformation after one of the grocery chain’s owners, Mohsin Issa, stepped down from running day-to-day operations in September.

In 2021, Issa, along with his brother Zuber and private equity firm TDR Capital, purchased a majority stake in Asda from its previous owner, Walmart.

Asda said that its RTO policy, combined with the restructuring and job cuts, would bring the business “in line with our competitors and the wider market, allowing us to build high-performing teams with a collaborative culture and respond to what our business needs the most.”

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Rose is not alone in wanting his employees back in the office. While many bosses are firm advocates for the potential productivity gains of in-person work, some studies have found that hybrid working does not affect productivity.

As the pandemic years fade further into the past, more CEOs have been returning to policies similar to those that existed in most corporate environments pre-2020. In recent months, companies like Dell and Amazon have announced that staff must be back in the office five days a week.

Asda’s chair told The Observer he thinks demand for hybrid work has swung too far in favor of workers.

“Hybrid working wasn’t invented in the pandemic,” Rose said. “It has to fit the business’s needs.”

Experts say workers still have some say in the working culture debate. If RTO policies become too strict, top talent will simply leave to find a system that works for them, Ravin Jesuthasan, a respected future-of-work researcher, previously told B-17.

If the labor market swings back around to favor workers, organizations will be under more pressure to meet their employees on their terms, the author “The Skills-Powered Organization” said.

Nick Bloom, a Stanford economist and a leading expert on remote work, previously told B-17 he believed working from home is “here to stay,” citing big steps in technology such as video calls and virtual reality.

In a presentation published in September, Bloom shared that surveys in 2021 had shown that, on average, employees regarded the right to work two or three days a week from home as valuable as an 8% pay rise, based on 17,087 responses.