Uber expects employees to spend at least three days a week at the office

As offices reopen, Uber says its employees can work from home if they choose — but only for two days a week.

Starting in September, the ride-hailing company will shift to a “hybrid model” for its employees “with a clear expectation that they also come into the office 3 days a week,” Nikki Krishnamurthy, the company’s chief people officer, said in a blog post Wednesday.

Internal company data showed that two-thirds of Uber employees prefer a mix of working from the office and from home, Krishnamurthy added.

Several of Silicon Valley’s biggest companies are slowly starting to reopen offices after being among the first to close them last year, offering a potential road map for what office work looks like in year two of the coronavirus pandemic.

Facebook and Google will both reopen their San Francisco Bay Area headquarters at limited capacity in the coming weeks, while Apple reportedly started allowing workers back as early as last May.

Uber last month opened the doors of its new campus in San Francisco’s Mission Bay, which finished construction during the pandemic. The office initially opened at 20% capacity, with employees allowed to return on a voluntary basis.

The ride-hailing firm has around 3,500 employees in the Bay Area and more than 22,000 worldwide. Employees who have gone remote will be required to return to their pre-pandemic location by September 13, the company said.

Krishnamurthy also addressed why Uber workers aren’t being given the option of staying permanently remote, like their peers at Twitter and Facebook.

“Why didn’t we make a more radical shift? It ultimately comes down to the kind of company we want to be,” she said. “Our business also exists in the real world, on the streets of thousands of cities, and it’s important we stay connected to the places we serve.”