General Motors decided to push back on its mandatory plan for employees to return to the office until the first quarter of 2023 at the earliest.

The car manufacturer sent a letter to employees last Friday revealing that staff would need to return to working in the office three days a week from later this year. However, the way in which GM notified employees ruffled a few feathers, prompting an apology from GM chief executive Mary Barra.

“We want to take the opportunity to address some of the questions, concerns, and misconceptions that we’ve heard,” Barra said in a note issued to employees on Tuesday. “We acknowledge that the timing of the message, late on a Friday afternoon, was unfortunate. It was also unintentional.”

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Salaried employees at GM have either worked totally remotely for the past two years or adopted a hybrid model dubbed Work Appropriately, letting employees and managers determine a mix between working at the office and working remotely.

Barra insists the car manufacturer will require a “more regular, in-person presence” for its salaried employees moving forward.

“Determining how, when, and where teams will increase their in-person collaboration ultimately will be designed by the people leaders who know their organization best,” she added in her note. “We do not plan to mandate which days of the week will be collaborative days. In no scenario will our Work Appropriately evolution begin before Q1 2023.”

Many GM employees took to online message boards to vent their frustrations at the impending changes.

“You can probably imagine what the general mood is,” a salaried employee told the Detroit Free Press. “The company has been talking a good game about Work Appropriately since this all began, and we were completely blindsided by this news.”

Professor in the Ross School of Business at the University of Michigan, Erik Gordon, says it is no surprise that the news has upset some.

“After staying home every day, they don’t want to go in even one day,” he noted. “If you give employees a benefit, no matter how clearly you say it’s temporary, they resent you if you take it away.”