Ford’s return-to-office story didn’t unfold in the fog of distant Covid memory. It happened in mid-2025, and the coverage by Business Insider landed in early October, right as Ford employees were still trying to adapt to a reshaped hybrid schedule.

Ford leadership had reportedly announced in late June that most white-collar staff would shift to a four-day onsite routine starting September 1

Executives said the move would strengthen collaboration and support Ford’s push to scale affordable EVs. Workers braced for the change. Then the emails started.

Business Insider reported that multiple employees received automated warnings saying their badge activity showed they were not coming in enough.

The messages said falling short could lead to discipline or even termination

Several workers told the outlet they were baffled because they had followed the rules. One said their manager had approved a hybrid plan and they still received threat-tinged reminders. 

Another said they had consistently met the attendance requirement and still ended up in the system’s crosshairs. Both described the notices as unsettling because they felt mislabeled as noncompliant.

The friction seemed worst inside Ford Enterprise Technology

During a September 9 meeting, an HR leader acknowledged what the system got wrong. He said the warnings swept up plenty of people who were “doing the things that you were supposed to.”

He explained the attendance tracker relied on a window that didn’t match Ford’s shifting expectations as the company moved ET staff from 13 days per quarter to three days per week and then to four. Standards shifted faster than the automated system could keep up.

Logistics strained things further. Some Michigan teams had already returned three days per week in late 2024. Others came back in August 2025. Employees reported desk shortages, overflowed lots, and even local police ticketing cars during the August trial run.

Ford said the situation improved by September and pointed to its new Dearborn headquarters opening that November as a long-term fix.

That’s the backdrop behind a more detailed Reddit post from a self-described Ford employee who supports manufacturing plants.

Ford employee explains why RTO mandate “makes no sense.”

They wrote: “Yeah, this has been the key irritation for me… we are being told we have to drive 40 minutes to two hours each way for some of our team to ‘collaborate’, but every meeting we have is still in Teams…”

They added that plant-support work doesn’t gain anything from sitting in Dearborn because their customers are spread across the globe. “Being in office doesn’t help us support them, we are always going to be remote to them,” they wrote.

To prove his point, he explained that “We’ve already run into situations where a plant has a significant issue but the people we need are in traffic driving home or to the office. Not only is this a pain for employees, but we are less available when plants need us. It’s incredibly poorly done.”

They closed with the complication they said keeps tripping the company up: “The issue is this global mandate [is] for everyone when the jobs we are doing vary so significantly that a blanket mandate makes no sense.”

The comment mirrored the reporting. Ford didn’t stumble because employees disliked showing up. The trouble came from a one-size policy dropped onto dozens of roles that rarely look the same from one day to the next.