For Blue Origin, the move to a full week RTO policy came as a surprise, a current employee told Insider, as the company had previously said it would be more flexible. According to an internal memo from last year, obtained by Insider, Blue Origin's SVP of operations Mike Eilola told managers the company had no plans to roll out a one-size-fits-all RTO policy.
"Blue is not implementing a defined hybrid work schedule for all employees because our business requirements, individual situations, and work roles vary dramatically," Eilola wrote. Eilola, at the time, said managers had discretion to adjust schedules for individual employees"to accommodate personal flexibility needs." He also said the remote work agreement could get terminated at any time if there is a change in job position or a"significant performance decline."
It's unclear what caused the latest policy change at Blue Origin. According to the recent email reminder, Blue Origin leaders said working in-person is important from"a culture, comradery, and results perspective." "Designing and building rockets, engines, and space systems requires hands-on work from our engineers, functional support teams, and more," the email said."As more and more employees come back to the office, the excitement and energy for our mission and achieving our goals continues to grow."Contact the reporter Eugene Kim via the encrypted-messaging apps Signal or Telegram (