Backlash Over Return To Office Mandate Sparks Culture Clash Debate Post Discovery-WarnerMedia Merger

deadline.com:

On April 26, Deadline ran a story titled “WarnerMedia Employees Asked To Return To Office On Short Notice By Warner Bros. Discovery.” The four-paragraph post was prompted by chatter I had heard that WarnerMedia employees were upset over a memo they had received earlier in the day by Warner Bros.

Discovery’s chief people and culture officer Adria Alpert Romm. In it, Romm informed staffers that they will be required to be in the office at least three times a week by June 1 and can ease into that hybrid schedule by starting to go to the office at least twice a week in May.What happened next has been pretty extraordinary.

The story has became an unofficial referendum on the new Discovery regime, which took over the combined company after the $43-billion merger with WarnerMedia closed April 8.

The piece has been read about 42,500 times, which is more than the workforce of the merged Warner Bros. Discovery, with the comments section taking on a life of its own as a message board – and a sounding board – for WarnerMedia employees who anonymously share their feelings about the return-to-work mandate and what the policy says about the changing culture at the storied media company.Twelve days later, the discussion continues, with more than 120 comments and new ones posted daily amid high post-merger anxiety and rampant speculation about pending downsizing at various WarnerMedia divisions, from the ad-supported entertainment linear networks to HBO Max to New Line, as WBD aims to deliver $3B in cost-savings.There are a handful of supporters of the new three-day-a-week in-office policy, which has been in place at Discovery since last fall but the majority strongly object to the mandate and threaten to quit over it, making this a test