Your 400-person technology team has worked fully remotely for three years. Leadership wants three days a week in office. Engineering output per sprint is flat over the period. Attrition is 14%, below the industry's 21%. An internal survey shows 61% would look for another job if required in three days a week, rising to 78% among those who moved out of the city. Office lease costs Rs 2.9 crore a year and is 22% occupied. New-joiner ramp time has risen from 5 to 8 weeks.
Write a one-page memo recommending a policy. Open with it, give your reasons in order of weight, and answer the strongest objection.
100 points, 60% to pass.
Only one piece of evidence supports the mandate — ramp time rising from 5 to 8 weeks — and a good memo finds it rather than arguing purely against leadership. Everything else points the other way: flat output, below-market attrition, and a survey saying the policy would cost a majority of the team. The 61% is a stated intention and should be discounted, but not to zero when 78% of relocated staff say it. Strong answers propose something targeted at the actual problem — in-person onboarding for the first eight weeks, team-level rather than company-level presence — and address the lease honestly, since Rs 2.9 crore at 22% occupancy is a sunk commitment that should not set headcount policy.