Inside ButcherBox’s RTO communications push

When ButcherBox rolled out its return-to-office policy, the announcement marked the final step in a yearlong communications push. Employees had already tested a version of the policy, shared feedback and seen their input reflected in the final plan.

At Ragan’s Employee Communications Culture Conference later this month in Boston, Jon Beck, vice president of people at ButcherBox, will share how a carefully planned communications process navigated a hot-button issue like RTO while building employee buy-in.

“The most effective change strategies don’t rely on a perfectly worded announcement,” Beck told Ragan. “They rely on time, transparency and a steady drumbeat of engagement long before any decision becomes official.”

Make change an ongoing process

Beck said that when ButcherBox was working on its RTO comms push, it was treated more like a sustained initiative with multiple phases and opportunities for input along the way. That approach allowed the company to refine both the policy and its rollout over time.

He added that although the policy formally went live on April 1, the communication push had been in full force since the fourth quarter of 2025.

“We believe in giving people a strong runway and being very clear about what’s coming,” Beck said. “But even a level deeper than that, we actually utilized multiple stakeholder groups to help design the policy itself. We engaged employees directly in the process, asked for their perspectives and used that input to shape what we ultimately rolled out. So by the time it becomes official, it’s not something happening to them. It’s something they’ve already been part of.”

Beck also noted that easing into the process over time was critical to getting people used to the policy and making them feel like they were involved in the effort.

“We started by communicating a temporary RTO approach so people could begin to adjust and understand what it might look like,” he told Ragan. “The pacing with which you roll these things out matters because people need time to process change, and they need to see that their input is actually influencing what happens next.”

Engage your critics directly and incorporate them into the change journey

That same approach extends to how ButcherBox engages its most skeptical employees. Sitting down with employees who have doubts gives space for more candid and nuanced feedback than what might come up in a broader forum like an employee survey.

“It’s very easy for companies to say, ‘That’s just a squeaky wheel — we don’t need to listen,’” Beck said. “But I actually want to get in a room with those people and hear them out. In the conversations I’ve had, you learn a lot about the individual and it’s rarely just about the policy itself. There’s usually something underlying that’s driving their reaction. If you ignore that, you miss the real issue. But if you engage with it, you can actually address what’s behind the resistance.”

Leaders treat these discussions as a critical part of the change framework.

“We lean pretty heavily on change management frameworks and move at a reasonable pace,” Beck added. “We’re not going to implement something tomorrow that’s going to be life-changing for employees. We really think about the employee experience and try to tailor our timelines accordingly.”

At the individual level, that effort shows up in how employees ultimately respond.

“People want to feel heard,” he said. “And when they see leadership taking that seriously, especially at a senior level, it changes how they engage with the decision overall.”

To register for our Employee Communications and Culture Conference, click here.

Sean Devlin is an editor at Ragan Communications.