Wix “back to the office” move provokes stormy debate

The announcement by Wix (Nasdaq: WIX) last week of a return to the format to full-time work at the office and an end to working from home has raised a storm on social media, and has swiftly become a discussion in principle on work culture, management, and where the tech industry is going in the AI era.

The company has announced that, from February 1, Wix employees in Israel will work five days at the office, together with selected teams in Europe, the exception being employees in Ukraine who will continue to work wherever is convenient and safe for them, as the war there continues.

The management stressed that discretion would be exercised in individual cases. In the notice to employees, company president Nir Zohar wrote that Wix had always believed in teamwork, and that in a period of rapid technological change brought about by AI, physical presence had a decisive value. He went on to say that working side by side allowed closer cooperation, fast decision making, and a daily dynamic hard to replicate remotely.

One of the most prominent criticisms following the announcement came from social psychologist Dr. Liraz Margalit, who claimed that a deeper move lay behind the decision than management’s preference for physical presence at work, and that the company’s official explanations were unsatisfactory. “If it were really a matter of cooperation, four days at the office would be enough,” she wrote, adding, “Something deeper is happening here.”

Margalit makes a connection between the move and the erosion of Wix’s competitive advantage because of AI. “The idea on which Wix based its empire, bringing down barriers to building a digital presence, has suddenly become much easier to reproduce. There’s no need to learn how to build a website; AI does it with one click,” she wrote, and so it’s not just a matter of competition, but of commoditization.

In a situation like that, Margalit argues, “The competitive advantage is eroded, and the threat becomes existential.” When organizations feel such a threat, she says, they don’t become more creative, they tighten up. This means less room for interpretation, less unconventional thinking, and more of a single norm that keeps everyone in line.” Margalit adds that it’s no coincidence that the move focuses particularly on Israel. “When a company needs to reinvent itself in the face of a technological threat, it goes back to its core. It needs its technological and creative core close, in one room, without Zoom delay and without being in separate homes.”

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In a broader context, she compares the move to steps taken by Elon Musk after he bought Twitter. “A system doesn’t necessarily break up when flexibility is cut, it simply re-forms,” she wrote. According to Margalit, even if steps such as this lead to employees resigning, they leave behind “a core of people prepared to sacrifice everything for the sake of the mission,” and signal “a genuine reset” that redefines standards and commitment in the enterprise.

A price in competition over talent

Shiri Vax, CEO of placement company GotFriends, wrote on her Facebook page that measures to reduce working from home were liable to exact a real price in the competition over talent. She says that the data she has gathered indicate a widening gap between management decisions and workers’ expectations. “While some companies are pushing for a return to full-time work in the office, about 80% of experienced workers, those with over four years experience, still see the hybrid model as a basic condition for considering changing jobs,” she wrote.

According to Vax, more than 50% of the jobs that opened up in the second half of 2025 offer at least two days working from home, which indicates that the market has not abandoned the hybrid model. At a time when demand for AI experts has doubled and competition over high-quality manpower is becoming fiercer, she warns that “a company that chooses to swim against the tide and reduce days working from home is liable to discover that the talent simply chooses the company next-door.” She adds that, from her management experience, it is possible to meet targets and even grow with hybrid working, which reduces burnout and enables employees to combine family life and a career.

On the other hand

There are also those on social networks who defend Wix’s management. Former employees and others in the industry say that belief in working face to face was part of Wix’s concept a long time before the Covid pandemic, and that the company has always seen direct personal interaction as a main engine of innovation and performance. They say that the decision stems from a coherent management concept and is not an opportunistic reaction to changing market conditions.

There is also criticism of the certainty expressed by those who oppose the move. Defenders of the company say that the ease with which it is predicted that employees will leave en masse and that the company will lose its attractiveness ignores the fact that this is a company that has succeeded in growing from zero to a market cap of billions and is still run by its founder and a veteran management team. In their view, the ability to make an unpopular decision, but one that is consistent with the ethos of the company, is an expression of confidence on management’s part and not weakness.

The defenders are joined by Shahar Cohen, managing partner of Lucid Capital, who wrote, “Working from home – anyone who thinks that Wix is making a mistake is welcome to listen to partners at Andreessen Horowitz, Elon Musk, the CEO of Amazon, and others. It doesn’t work in the long run in large organizations. Juniors don’t learn, the work ethic drifts (it starts with a 30-minute break, then people take an afternoon snooze, after that they schedule a three-hour errand in the middle of the day…)”

Published by Globes, Israel business news – en.globes.co.il – on January 11, 2026.

© Copyright of Globes Publisher Itonut (1983) Ltd., 2026.