Future, the London-listed owner of magazines from Marie Claire to Metal Hammer, has reversed its advice to more than 1,000 members of staff that they must continue to come into the office. The publisher faced a backlash after it sent an email to its approximately 1,500 staff based in England telling them a shift to full working from home “is not something we can do”, despite the latest government guidance to work from home where possible to contain the spread of the Omicron Covid variant. Future’s chief people officer, Hazel Boyle, wrote to all staff on Friday to “clarify that this is not a mandatory requirement”, in an email seen by the Guardian. She added that “if anyone does not feel comfortable coming in to work for whatever reason, then they are under no pressure to do so and should feel free to work from home instead”. Future, which last month reported expectation-busting revenues and profits guaranteeing big bonuses for its top management, employs 2,800 staff in total, with the US its other main market. The prime minister, Boris Johnson, said on Wednesday that “from Monday 13 December, those who can will be advised to work from home” as part of the efforts to control Omicron. On Thursday, the UK reported almost 51,000 new cases of coronavirus, with 148 deaths, as the number of new cases of Omicron doubled in a day. The advice is not legally mandatory. Future had previously insisted that it was unable to let workers stay at home. “There is a cost to our business of prolonged working from home,” wrote Boyle, in the initial email sent on Thursday, which was first reported by the Guardian. “So while the government is recommending [working from home] ‘where you can’, we believe that full-time working from home is not something ‘we can’ do.” The company said that working from home affected “business performance, creativity and teamwork”, despite beating its own forecasts and increasing revenues by almost a quarter in the last year. It “ideally” wants staff in at least two days a week from Monday to “benefit from collaboration”. “Our stance has always been that we will follow government guidelines,” the internal email continued. “So you might be asking why we are keeping the office open when the advice is to stay at home if you can. Plan B is a different government strategy from previous lockdowns because everything around us remains relatively the same – restaurants, shops, bars continue to operate in the lead-up to Christmas.” Staff have been coming in at least two days a week, more in some divisions, and are expected to move to three days a week in the new year. The company signed off its original email by suggesting that people could only work from home full-time if they were “genuinely” not going out and socialising to limit the chance of catching Covid. The company said that additional health and safety measures would be introduced to offices “over the coming weeks”, including the reintroduction of social distancing, one-way systems, a two-person maximum limit in lifts, no more than four staff in a meeting room, and a negative lateral flow test before entering an office. A Future spokesperson said: “The health and safety of our colleagues is paramount, and we have introduced additional measures to support those who are in our offices in England. We will continue to monitor government guidance closely.” Next week, Future’s annual report will reveal that top managers including Zillah Byng-Thorne, the publisher’s chief executive, took home millions in pay, bonuses and incentive scheme awards this year. Last year, Byng-Thorne and the chief financial officer, Penny Ladkin-Brand, who is the second-highest paid executive at Future, took home a combined £5m. In pre-pandemic 2019 the pair pocketed more than £8.5m.