600 Paramount Skydance Employees Quit Rather Than Return to Office

Hundreds of Paramount Skydance employees have chosen to quit rather than return to the office five days a week.

In September, following the long-delayed $8 billion merger of the two media giants, CEO David Ellison told staff in a companywide email that they would be required to work in person full-time or accept a buyout, Sasha Rogelberg reported for Fortune.

The mandate was part of a series of efficiency initiatives designed to “unlock Paramount’s full potential,” according to the memo, as reported by Fox News.

“As I said during our town hall, some of the most formative moments of my life happened in rooms where I was a fly on the wall, listening and learning. I’ve never seen that happen on Zoom,” Ellison wrote.

Roughly 600 employees in the company’s Los Angeles and New York offices—at the vice president level and below—accepted the buyout, according to company disclosures filed recently.

The severance packages cost Paramount $185 million. The filings cited restructuring expenses “associated with actions to align the business around our strategic priorities.”

A shareholder letter released ahead of the company’s earnings presentation indicated that Paramount expects to incur $1.7 billion in total restructuring costs related to the ongoing reorganization.