After a trickling of return-to-office policies within individual teams, Target is officially calling back all headquarters workers from one of its largest business units three days a week.
The commercial unit, overseen by Target’s Chief Commercial Officer Rick Gomez, includes buyers, assistant buyers and planners. Those affected were notified through a department-wide email on Thursday and are expected to return to offices the first week of September.
“More time together, in the office, will help us grow our business faster, solve problems quickly, and build stronger relationships,” Gomez wrote in the email.
The move comes a little over a month after multiple teams had been notified by managers that they would be expected to work at the office soon. Those teams were in various departments from merchandising to design.
Employees will be allowed to set their own schedules and choose which three days work best for them and their immediate work teams, he wrote. Target declined to share how many employees will be returning to the office, but there are a total of 7,100 workers assigned to headquarters.
Downtown sees 70,000 people at most on a daily basis, said Adam Duininck, CEO and president of the Minneapolis Downtown Council. U.S. Bank, Xcel Energy and Ameriprise have already called workers back to the office at least three days a week.
Duininck said he hopes downtown worker traffic will rise to pre-pandemic numbers of 200,000 to 215,000.
Target, headquartered in downtown Minneapolis, and Richfield-based Best Buy moved quickly to lean on e-commerce and remote pickup.
Chief Commercial Officer Rick Gomez sent an email to his unit saying that all workers would need to be in-office three days a week starting in September. (Glen Stubbe/The Minnesota Star Tribune)
Target’s corporate policy still has not changed. Besides five mandated in-office weeks, the company lets work groups decide if they should work in the office.