About 600 employees quit after Paramount Skydance’s five-day office rule

Paramount Skydance (Courtesy: Reuters file photo)

In November 2025, Paramount Skydance reported that about 600 employees opted for voluntary severance rather than go along with a newly instituted five-day-a-week return-to-office (RTO) policy.

The policy was implemented last September by Chief Executive Officer David Ellison. It mandates that all employees based at their US offices, in Los Angeles and New York, at the level of vice-president or below, must return to on-site work five days a week from January 5 2026. Employees who would not do so were offered a buyout option.

When the company filed its quarterly results, the buyouts were listed as restructuring costs of about $185 million. The move was part of a bigger transformation following the company's merger with Skydance in a deal valued at $8.4 billion earlier this year.

Why it happened

The leadership at Paramount Skydance said this sort of collaboration was vital to creative culture and innovation, aligning the business under a post-merger strategy. "In-person collaboration is absolutely vital to building and strengthening our culture," Ellison said in his memo.

But the decision encountered some resistance. Hundreds of employees, used to a hybrid or remote model-longtime by-products of pandemic-era work patterns-faced an ultimatum: return or opt out via severance.

Broader implications

The incident adds fuel to a growing debate about office mandates in post-pandemic workplaces. Other major firms, including tech and finance companies, have also tightened RTO policies, in some cases sparking backlash or departures.

The timing is significant for Paramount. Alongside the severances, it has planned further job cuts and divestments, with around 1,600 additional staff expected to go as it sheds non-core international assets in early 2026.

What employees and observers are saying

Many workers who quit say the decision not to return was driven by considerations of lifestyle, commute and flexibility and family priorities. One former employee described it as a choice of freedom over what they saw as a rigid “office-first” culture.

Industry analysts say that, while five days in-office can be a big boost to the company culture and mentorship, taking away options may drive out talent that cannot relocate or is unwilling to commute.

The takeaway

The Paramount case shows that even the biggest of companies are still trying to work out how work culture changes in a world where remote or hybrid models have taken hold. For organizations, perhaps the takeaway is this: implementing strict office requirements can come with unforeseen expenses-not just financial ones but also in talent and brand equity.