BlackRock is telling managing directors to return to the office five days a week, joining the ranks of big companies saying the era of work from home must end.
BlackRock manages $10.5 trillion in client assets and employs about 4,000 New Yorkers in its Hudson Yards headquarters that measures nearly 1 million square feet across 15 floors. The firm has nearly 23,000 workers worldwide and approximately 1,000 managing directors.
News of BlackRock’s return-to-office order was first reported by the Financial Times. A spokesman declined to comment.
BlackRock’s move to end remote work for senior staff comes shortly after a survey from the Partnership for New York City showed that return-to-office rates have barely changed since 2022, with 57% of Manhattan workers back on the average workday. Employers told the Partnership, New York’s leading business group, that they planned to impose stricter office-attendance requirements this year. It’s been difficult to make such edicts stick, however.
“Many of these return-to-office announcements are not enforced properly, or enforced for a few weeks and then ignored,” Nicholas Bloom, an economist and remote-work expert at Stanford University, told Crain’s last month.
JPMorgan has ordered managing directors to work from the office full-time and Amazon has also told staff it’s time to stop working from home. Most banks continue to allow junior staffers to work remotely at least once a week.
BlackRock is a major New York real estate investor through its mutual funds and other vehicles. The firm controls 17% of all shares in SL Green, 12% of BXP, and 11% of Vornado Realty Trust, according to those companies’ proxy statements. BlackRock also owns $26 billion worth of real estate through its private markets arm.
