- Ford’s four-day office rule is creating tension and confusion for employees.
- Managers admit tracking errors but insist compliant workers won’t lose their jobs.
- One worker displayed an explicit anti-RTO message inside Ford’s HQ.
Across corporate America, the tug-of-war between remote flexibility and office life shows no signs of easing. By early September 2025, most of Ford’s salaried employees were expected to return to the office (RTO) at least four days a week. The policy, aimed at improving collaboration and communication, was positioned as a step toward stronger teamwork and culture.
While that might be working for some, a segment of the employee population says it’s creating more friction than it’s worth. At least one person made that clear with a vulgar anti-RTO message at Ford’s headquarters, too.
Compliance Confusion
Workers have known since June that Ford wanted folks to come back into the office. It’s gone as far as to threaten those who don’t with the potential loss of their jobs. The automaker has also used methods to track how often workers are there on-site, and many complain that it’s a broken system.
According to sources who spoke with Business Insider, the company has flagged some workers as being out of compliance, despite that not being the case. Some managers have allegedly approved more time away from the office, only for their team members to still get reprimanded.
More: Ford’s Hybrid Work Experiment Is Coming To An End
Inside an internal all-hands meeting, Ford’s Enterprise Technology HR director acknowledged the problem, saying that workers who had been “doing the things that you were supposed to” were “caught up in a lot of that noise.”
He emphasized that those who are meeting the four-day rule “should not be concerned about losing their jobs.”
He also conceded that the prior warning email communications were based on mismatched standards and pledged to “ask for those to be changed or modified.” That all said, there are still employees there who believe the RTO order needs to go away for good.
Growing Pushback
One former staff member shared that working across global time zones has become nearly impossible under the new rules. “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,” they told BI.
A current employee said something potentially more damning. “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.
That frustration has boiled over to the point that at least one person took the matter into their own hands.
Explicit Message on the Screens
The Detroit Press reports that someone recently used network access to display a message on the TVs in Ford’s headquarters that showed a crossed-out image of CEO Jim Farley with an explicit anti-RTO message below it.
“We’re aware of an inappropriate use of Ford’s IT technology and we’re investigating it,” Dave Tovar, Ford spokesman, told the news outlet.
This is unquestionably a tricky spot for Ford. It, like all other automakers, needs to maximize its productivity, but there are good reasons to question if this blanket approach is right. Data suggests that remote work can improve and decrease productivity based on circumstances, team size, and other factors. Only time will tell if Ford is making the right call or not.
