Mandate

mandate
verb, transitive. To give someone authority to act in a certain way. To require something to be done; to make mandatory.
Also a noun. Also an adjective, as "mandated"

Production staff gathered at the conference table, bleary-eyed. Troy's hair looked uncombed. Stacy had not yet applied makeup and appeared undefined--not her assertive self. All nursed takeout coffee. Brad felt a moment's regret for calling a meeting so early, but shook it off. He might as well get it over with. Maybe the new requirements headquarters mandated would shake them up and wake them up. Now that he considered them in this light--both the illumination from the east window-wall next to the table, and the figurative light of the new corporate bosses' criticisms--he realized that his staff could stand a little upset. All of them, including Brad, had become complacent.

"I know you're not used to being alert and productive at eight a.m.," he began, "but this comes from Delaware. The new owners have had time to look at our numbers and they're not happy. We look lazy, and they want changes, starting with our daily schedule. Everyone is supposed to be in the office, ready to begin work, at eight, starting today. I know it's going to be an adjustment, but we'll all have to make it or they'll find people who can."

Ken scoffed. "They'll never be able to replace us with a more-talented team!"

Brad met Ken's eyes and shook his head. "They can and they will. Argue all you want, Ken. They don't want to hear it. They want to see results and they want to see them soon."

"How soon?" This was Stacy, her eyes widening in fear. Brad felt a twinge of sympathy. She was a single mother, after all, but he quashed it. If she didn't shape up with the others, there would be nothing he could do to salvage her position.

"Immediately," he answered.

Definitions adapted from The New Oxford American Dictionary, Oxford University Press, Inc., 2005 (eBook Edition, copyright 2008), and from Webster's Seventh New Collegiate Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam Company, Publishers, Springfield, Massachusetts, USA, 1965, depending on which is more convenient to hand.