Hundreds of city of Seattle employees working remotely may be ready to quit over proposed return-to-office rules that some think are less about productivity than about repopulating downtown’s flagging business district.

But city officials say the new policy is necessary to help move the city toward a post-pandemic normal and it gives employees far more flexibility than before COVID-19.

The dispute has been simmering since June 13, when Mayor Bruce Harrell emailed employees that he was preparing a “long-term remote/hybrid work policy” for later this year “with an expectation that staff will report to the office or worksite at least two workdays a week.” That’s roughly on par with what many private employers have announced.

Harrell’s email arrived two months after a majority of the city employees who could work remotely in some form — about 35% of the roughly 13,000-member city workforce — were told in March to return to the office.

A new city policy for remote and hybrid work was always going to be needed to replace the “hastily developed policies adopted at the heights of a global pandemic,” Harrell spokesperson Jamie Housen said in an email Thursday.

Since March, all but around 2,300 workers, or roughly 18% of the total, have come back to at least twice a week, Housen said, adding that “employee access to remote and hybrid options has significantly increased compared to pre-pandemic policies.”

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