Thousands of Disney employees push back on mandate to work in person four days a week

• Corporate employees at Disney aren't ready to go back to the office full time just yet.
• Over 2,000 workers have signed a petition asking CEO Bob Iger to reconsider a policy that would require them to work four days a week in person.

Employees at Walt Disney Co. are fighting a mandate that would require workers to return to offices for four days a week starting in March.

Staffers have signed a petition to CEO Bob Iger asking him to reconsider the new rule, according to The Washington Post, which reviewed the document. It was reportedly signed by over 2,300 workers in protest of what will be one of the strictest attendance policies in the post-pandemic corporate world.

In the petition, Disney employees allege the change has the potential to "have unintended consequences that cause long-term harm to the company." Disney's 200,000 employees currently work a hybrid schedule that requires two or three days in the office each week.

"This policy will slow, or even reverse, our post-COVID recovery and growth by creating critical resource shortages and causing irreplaceable institutional knowledge loss," signees wrote, per The Washington Post.

According to the report, the policy was announced in January when Iger suggested that working in person at the office would benefit the company and workers alike. However, employees gave their own accounts of how the change made them feel "forced out."

"There is value in being together, but we also need to look forward and embrace new paradigms that add value," the petition reads.

Parents, workers who described themselves as neurodivergent, and those with physical disabilities all gave testimonials as to why flexibility at Disney was important to them.

"Flexibility at Disney really felt like a fresh start," an unidentified employee told The Post. "Now it feels like we're moving backwards."

Earlier this month, Iger laid off thousands of Disney employees and effectively dismantled the company's existing structure after taking over as CEO.

Disney did not immediately respond to Insider's request to comment on the petition.