As corporations like Amazon, JPMorgan, and Walmart implement return-to-office (RTO) mandates, one enterprise is sweetening the deal by giving its workers a $10,000 annual increase for exhibiting as much as the workplace extra typically.
Cameo, a startup that permits customers to buy and obtain customized video messages from celebrities, started a brand new RTO coverage this week requiring the 26 workers who work on the firm’s headquarters in Chicago to be within the workplace Monday by way of Thursday, per CNBC Make It. The coverage, which the corporate first introduced to employees final month, allows workers to obtain a $10,000 yearly increase along with free parking, a free each day catered lunch, and free entry to an onsite fitness center.
“We actually felt like we needed to make HQ a perk, not a punishment,” Cameo CEO Steven Galanis instructed CNBC Make It. “We all know we’re asking extra out of you to surrender the pliability, and we needed to compensate you for it.”
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Cameo has two dozen extra workers based mostly elsewhere within the U.S. and overseas, primarily in New York and Los Angeles. They had been allowed to maintain working remotely however weren’t given a pay increase.
Galanis, 37, selected to set the annual increase at $10,000 as a result of the determine would make a “significant” distinction in workers’ lives and hoped it might assist junior workers discover housing close by as a substitute of taking over lengthy commutes.
The Chicago headquarters opened in the summertime of 2024, however Cameo management by no means mandated a strict set of days workers needed to report back to the workplace. Employees based mostly in Chicago beforehand got here to the workplace every time they wanted to, exhibiting up a mean of two to a few instances per week, in line with Galanis.
Cameo CEO Steven Galanis. Jose M. Osorio/Chicago Tribune/Tribune Information Service by way of Getty Photographs
When Cameo knowledgeable its Chicago workers of the four-days-a-week in-office coverage final month, it additionally gave them the choice to maneuver out of Chicago to not have to come back into the workplace in any respect.
Cameo discovered that none of its workers give up or moved away after the announcement. As an alternative, the other occurred. A few of Cameo’s distant employees based mostly in different places expressed curiosity in shifting to Chicago and profiting from the perks supplied to in-office workers.
A HealthEquity examine launched earlier this month surveyed greater than 600 full-time workers who shifted from totally distant to hybrid or totally in-person work. Three out of 4 workers stated their RTO experiences had been optimistic, with 74% saying they skilled enhanced collaboration.
The highest motivators for workplace attendance weren’t free lunches or a increase, it was skilled growth alternatives (50%) and team-building occasions (47%). The largest impediment to in-person work recognized by the survey was commuting prices (54%).
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Cameo has skilled a tumultuous few years. The pandemic catapulted the startup to unicorn standing, with a valuation of $1 billion by 2021. Gross sales declined by March 2024, erasing 90% of Cameo’s worth.
Galanis instructed Time in December that he thinks the momentum has shifted in Cameo’s favor.
“I am actually grateful for our buyers and our crew, that they’ve believed in me and allowed us the second shot to construct an organization that we do not suppose has reached close to its potential but,” he said.
