Qualcomm Ends Hybrid Work, Mandates 5-Day RTO

This article was written on Feb 20, 2025 at 10:28 AM. The post was updated on Feb 20, 2025 at 5:25 PM to include the anonymous email.

Rumors have started circling on forums today. In an internal meeting that likely occurred on February 18 or 19, 2025, Qualcomm announced that employees must start coming into the office five days per week.

I reached out to three people at Qualcomm, but have not heard back. Although the rumors haven’t been confirmed by anyone at Qualcomm yet, here’s what I know so far.

February 19, 2025: Anonymous post goes up on The Layoff

Someone anonymously posted on thelayoff.com about Qualcomm’s CEO mandating five days per week in the office. 

The original poster mentioned how the company still expects US employees to take night meetings with colleagues in India (and those peoples can be done remotely). Another commenter noted the same thing.

Feb 20: Post goes up on Reddit

A new Reddit thread appeared in the Remote Work community mentioning the new RTO policy as well.

Feb 20: Anonymous Qualcomm employee confirms the mandate

After posting this article, I received the following message:

Confirmed.

This was announced by Cristiano during an all-hands meeting yesterday (Feb 19): 5 days in office will be fully implemented by the end of FY25.

Employees not in compliance with the 4 days/week in office mandate have received notices that they have 45 days to comply before being terminated.

Background on Qualcomm’s RTO Policy

Here’s what we know about Qualcomm’s adjustments to its workplace policies:

• Qualcomm’s first RTO policy suggested employees come into the office two days per week.
• In May of 2023, the company upgraded that to four days per week. 
• In February of 2025, the company updated that to five days per week.

My Conclusion

Three individual forum comments suggest that people are Qualcomm employees and have knowledge of the change. 

Another anonymous email from an employee confirmed the same policy with details.

This is not confirmed yet by anyone officially at Qualcomm (I will update this post if I hear back), but the policy most likely did happen.

Conclusion:

• As of February 19, 2025, Qualcomm expects corporate employees to be in the office five days per week.
• This new mandate overrides the previous four-day/week policy from 2023. 

Do you have information about Qualcomm’s RTO policy? Contact me with details. I will update the story if you have information about this story.