Disney’s Iger: Where Dreams Come True — the Office
Media giant leads office and studios in hometown Burbank, Calif.
By Greg Cornfield January 9, 2023 4:45 pm
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Walt Disney Co.’s newly reinstated CEO Bob Iger is updating the office policy at the multibillion-dollar company, and ordering employees to return to the office four days per week.
The change will take effect March 1, CNBC first reported, citing a company email. Iger, who replaced CEO Bob Chapek in November, told office workers Monday that in-person work would produce more collaboration and creativity.
“As you’ve heard me say many times, creativity is the heart and soul of who we are and what we do at Disney,” Iger said in the email. “And in a creative business like ours, nothing can replace the ability to connect, observe and create with peers that comes from being physically together, nor the opportunity to grow professionally by learning from leaders and mentors. It is my belief that working together more in-person will benefit the company’s creativity, culture and our employees’ careers.”
Disney is based in the media hub of Burbank, Calif., along with many other name-brand media firms like Warner Bros. and Netflix, which also lease significant office and studio space. Disney’s change comes as CEOs around the country — most notably in media and tech — continue to reassess their office use policies against hybrid and work-from-home strategies, and thus their overall office space needs.
San Francisco-based software company Salesforce recently announced that it’s laying off workers and ditching office space after rapid growth during the pandemic. Netflix requires corporate workers to come into the office, but it is subleasing out about 180,000 square feet of office space, also in Burbank, after hundreds of layoffs in 2022. Meanwhile, Santa Monica-based Snap Inc. will start requiring employees to come in four days a week in February, and, last fall, Apple started requiring employees to come into the office three days per week.
Gregory Cornfield can be reached at gcornfield@commercialobserver.com.
