Microsoft is preparing to impose a mandatory return-to-office policy that will require most staff who live within 50 miles of its Redmond, Washington, headquarters to work on-site at least three days a week. According to internal briefings cited by multiple reports, individual business units may raise the requirement to four or five days. The company intends to announce the directive in September and begin enforcing it in late January. The shift would cover a large share of Microsoft’s 228,000 employees, including roughly 125,000 based near Redmond, and would unwind the flexible arrangements the software maker introduced during the pandemic. Management has argued that employees who spend more time together score higher on internal “thriving” metrics, even as the company continues to report robust earnings following a wave of about 15,000 job cuts earlier this year. Microsoft’s move adds to a broader push among employers to curb remote work. In the public sector, San Francisco will bring another 8,000 city workers into the office at least four days a week from Aug. 18, while Brampton, Ontario, plans to require municipal employees to be on-site full-time by January after the province told its public servants to increase in-person attendance to four days a week starting Oct. 20. The string of mandates underscores mounting momentum on both sides of the U.S.–Canada border to restore pre-pandemic office routines.