In a companywide memo, Penguin Random House CEO Nihar Malaviya has announced updates to the publisher's hybrid work arrangements plans to downsize its headquarters at 1745 Broadway this fall.
PRH is "not planning a company-wide mandate to return to in-person work" at its 1745 Broadway office, or any other office location, Malaviya wrote. However, the company will now be "encourag[ing] employees to go to the office more frequently."
"The needs of the various departments around the company are distinct, and there’s no one-size-fits-all solution," Malaviya wrote. "Therefore, each division and department will discuss how we will work together; different managers may make different decisions for their teams based on their job functions and business priorities."
Malaviya added that the company plans to "change our current office space and reduce our footprint at 1745 Broadway" in the fall of this year. No specifics of that downsizing were mentioned in the memo.
"For the past three years, we've adopted a progressive mindset in building a flexible work environment to help us navigate our ever-shifting world," Malaviya continued. "We're now in a vastly different reality than we were in 2020."
The move signals a change in approach for the PRH, which in April 2021 declared itself "remote-friendly." In a companywide statement, then-CEO Madeline McIntosh affirmed that being a "'remote-friendly' company... doesn’t mean that everyone will work from home all the time, but it does mean that those who choose to and are able to do their jobs from home (which is most of us, as 2020 showed) can continue to do so."
The memo comes during a challenging year for the publisher, following its loss in court last year resulting in a failed bid to purchase Simon & Schuster, a tough fiscal year in 2022, and a significant number of buyouts and layoffs this summer.
