#returntooffice

RTO either has a lot of no shows, or 3M cut that many! Hearing some avoiding RTO because boss and co-workers are in other states or countries, so why RTO? For those that are in office, most are just on calls with global employees anyways. It makes no sense to push a RTO

For those who don't currently work at Ford, you may think the posts about having a chair taken, restrooms in disrepair, parking lots on overflow, and people camped out in cafeterias that were not made for working are all an overstatement. As a current employee I'm here to tell you they are absolutely true and being reported by our coworkers on an increasingly frequent basis. I have personally witnessed each of those things in my building in Dearborn.

Current employees, I encourage you to join the viva engage channels where folks are sharing their experiences from around the world. You can share your experience, you are not alone.

In Mexico, they are commuting 1-2 hours each way due to the traffic congestion around the location where the Ford campus is located. In Dunton, a 20 mile drive can take 1-2 hours with traffic.

These are not employees looking to complain for the sake of complaining. These are employees who have done what was asked and showed up to their assigned location, only to be continually failed by leadership and Ford Land.

Someone posted about occupancy limits and fire code violations. They are cramming so many people into spaces that were not meant for people to be sitting at. Cords are draped across tables and the floor since there are no power outlets on tables that were meant to eat lunch at.

It doesn't have to be this way and it shouldn't be this way. Please speak up. Use the onsite feedback site that I'm sure has been shared in your channels. This is not healthy, it is not productive, and for those of us who truly want to see the company succeed, it is accomplishing nothing but tearing us apart.

The wider we share our experiences, the more chances we have to put some real social pressure on those who made these decisions.

To all of those showing up, hang in there and know you're not alone. And also, I'm sorry, we used to be so much better than this.

https://www.cnbc.com/amp/2025/09/04/paramount-5-day-a-week-mandate.html

Any truth to the Compliance department being told they need to be in the office 4 days a week starting Jan 1st?

Has anyone heard anything credible about the bank forcing people back to the office 4 days per week starting in 2026?

They just implemented a plan for full time return to office 5 days a week for EVERY employee (including hybrid or remote)....or take the package and gone by Oct 31st...with more layoffs to come in November.

Phase 1 - Jan 5 for people assigned to LA and NYC offices

Phase 2 - TBA in 2026 for all other employees

We were told today RTO will be 5 days in January 2026. Can anyone in HR confirm this? What about remote workers? Will they be required to relocate near a corporate office (i.e. LA or NY) or will exceptions be made for some?

Teased the RTO mandate for so long in every staff meeting, and now its finally here. Someone has clearly had enough with remote work. But to force it on existing employees, to uproot their family to continue to work for them? How does this make any logical sense? Will this company continue to exist even a few years from now?

Seeing, hearing, and sharing the same air space with all of you reminds me just how much I hate you people. And this dump a-s company. Too bad I’m too big of a piece of trash to get anything else too. Intel stink. What a fkn loser.

I heard recently that a remote person who is less than 30 miles away from the office is being converted back into hybrid and forced to go in. This employee is out at the moment so I can't ask them. Anybody else hear anything to this effect

From the AT&T board
https://www.thelayoff.com/t/1w2xikUC

Good luck!

Because we’re not a-s kissers like that other guy.

Thank you for your attention to this matter!

ANONYMOUS, Employee of Teradata (TDC) Corporation

RTO really boils down to two drivers: control, and the financial interests that CxOs hold in commercial real estate companies. The more employees are physically in the office, the more those properties stay profitable. It has little to do with productivity and everything to do with money and power.

On a personal level, RTO has increased my monthly costs by about 25% compared to working from home. Between gas, parking, meals, and other daily expenses, the difference adds up quickly. On top of that, I’m losing about 90 minutes a day to commuting - time that could have gone into either more focused work or simply maintaining some balance at home.

So while companies frame RTO as being about culture or collaboration, for workers it often just means higher costs, less time, and no real improvement in output.

I’ll never understand the people on these threads who equate working from home with not working. It’s frustrating that even the ELT has started to adopt that attitude. We’re three rounds of layoffs in after three years, and it’s not because people were slacking off just because they weren’t physically on site. In my group we were almost entirely WFH, regularly putting in 50-hour weeks.

Ironically, WFH actually makes it easier to work longer hours, since the project is always right there in the next room, waiting to be picked up again in the evening. Now, to drive attrition, the ELT wants me to give up an hour and a half of my day to commute. I’ll still end up bringing work home, but I won’t be able to put in the same evening hours or keep up with household responsibilities once the commute is added on.

Quick question for folks across departments—curious about your current RTO setup.
Our team has known for a while that starting in September, we’ll be required to be in the office for a full 8-hour stretch each day. As it gets closer, though, I’ve been hearing that other departments may still have more flexibility—like being able to finish the day remotely if they’ve spent most of it in the office.

Just trying to get a clearer picture:
Is your team expected to be in the office for a full 8 hours straight, or do you have a hybrid option that helps with traffic and overall balance?

Appreciate any insight—just hoping to understand how consistent this is across the org.

Who else strongly feel that company HQ should fix their entrance + parking chaos first before calling more professionals back to office?

The single 2-lane entrance the is crossed by walking construction workers is frustrating/dangerous in the morning.

But leaving is worse. That merge as taking a right past the exit gates into a single 1-lane exit for 50ft is absurd for a F500 HQ campus. No wonder the parking garage gridlocks up to the fourth floor as teams all exit at the same time. Simply install a second exit to the main street.

Remove the big speed bumps that slow the sports cars down to .5mph. Leave the 5 smaller bumps for each set and that will help smooth the flow of traffic in the morning. Mirrors around corners would also help as they have designed pedestrians walking into elevators right by a vehicle blind corner.

This is common-sense improvements before calling back more people RTO.

Come on admit it who thought up this idea of everyone having to book their desks? Forcing everyone into 4 days a week now coming up with yet another way to sc--w us all over. Can you believe there is other places to work where you can just go into an office and sit down at will. Madness.

Ford Land RTO is coming next week yay and already the tone amongst employees is becoming heated. Order your magnetic desk name plate, be sure to take it with you daily because of the center of gravity nonsense. One of my co-workers in Mexico told me that he is not allowed to park at the office and a large group is being forced to park at a mall nearly 1 hour and must take a shuttle. So add 2 hours a day to your daily commute and work schedule, great idea!! Some shuttles stop at 5 PM, so you have a 6 PM meeting with Asia, too bad for you, call an Uber. Who is the Einstein that is running this circus!

Yeah, it's weird here. Yeah, the morale isn't great and the Coporate big-wigs make life more difficult on their employees than they have to. But get out and enjoy the weekend, everyone. Happy Labor Day!

But to the on-highs who decided that the still hybrid office employees have offended the company by having the audacity to celebrate a federal holiday on a Monday and elected to punish us by forcing everyone into the office next Thursday; I hope the beer is warm and the grill breaks.

How does WF track how many hours you are in office? You don’t need to swipe badge out in some buildings

How can I force a severance package? Stop coming to the office?

I don’t get why we’re being told to come back to the office. It doesn’t feel like it’s about the work. We already proved we can do our jobs at home. It just feels like productivity theater.

They say attendance is going to be part of reviews now. But the bonus is laughable and the RSUs don’t mean much. Doesn’t seem worth it.

What gets me is the execs still working remote. Some of them barely show up at all. Feels pretty hypocritical.

And honestly they can’t fire everyone. The company needs us more than they admit. These rules only matter if we all go along with them.

Comments in the main thread:

• "All they could say for remote workers (like me) was that we 'might be expected to relocate.'" (Anonymous, Post ID: @q8+1k3eddae2)
• "There will come a time where Kroger will have to let go of the whole RTO business if they want to be competitive again." (Anonymous, Post ID: @q7+1k3eddae2)
• "Heard all fully remote buyers are gone" (Anonymous, Post ID: @n8+1k3eddae2)
• "remote got laid off so vague and cold - pre-recorded." (Kranger0826, Post ID: @pf+1k3eddae2)
• "not all remote associates were let go. source: me, a remote associate on a fully remote team." (Anonymous, Post ID: @pc+1k3eddae2)

They know they will score even lower than in March if they come out with the mandatory RTO policy!
Watch out!

The RTO mandate begins next week. I honestly thought I would be seeing more anger about it on here as the time got closer, but instead, the discussion about it has just kind of dried up. Has everyone just kind of quietly given up and accepted it? Or is nobody talking about it because people are just planning to ignore it? Curious to hear people's thoughts now that it's almost here.

For everyone complaining that the backlash to RTO gets tiring, here's why it won't go away.

Outsourcing means they don't believe you can't do the job remotely.

Work has changed. You can do everything with an internet connection.

Housing prices and cost of living are insane, but America has a lot of undeveloped land where we could build affordable housing for decent costs if you didn't have to commute to one building just to be on your computer.

Teams are not co-located, so collaboration is a made up reason to be in the office.

Commuting and office buildings are huge carbon emissions contributors, so I dont want to hear from any of these companies what they think of the environment.

The world has changed. We should embrace it. Companies could get teams together for one offs. They can even have optional offices or offices for execs who love it so much, but the excuse that this is what we've always done just doesn't make sense anymore.

Be honest, HBAs want to silence voices questioning the current policy because the status quo because it benefits them. They don’t want the firm to revisit its current policy of allowing HBA roles based solely on geographic location because it might mean a change that disrupts their ability to work with little to no accountability wherever and largely whenever they choose without incurring the costs of commuting. They don’t want ANY disruptions to their sweetheart deal and will shout down anyone that even tries to advocate for a change.

HBAs shouldn’t point the finger at the firm while selfishly praising and protecting both explicitly and implicitly a two-tiered, unfair system that unilaterally benefits only them. If HBAs actually cared about the negative impacts of RTO on hybrid associates they would push the firm for a policy that treats all associates fairly. Instead, to preserve their own interests in keeping the current policy in place they push narratives of “isolation” and raise fears of lack of career progression (as if there is any for hybrid workers) to the forefront so the firm focuses on those manufactured concerns instead of crafting an equitable solution for everyone.

To me and many others, HBAs’ silence, fake concerns, and hostility to change the real problem are as much to blame for the firm’s stance as the c-suite.

If they truly cared, HBAs would push for a policy that is equal for all workers even if that means hybrid are paid more to offset commuting costs or barring that embrace accountability metrics like the badge swiping and other surveillance hybrid associates have to endure. I’ve seen none of that.

Anyone have info on what RTO will look like aside from it being implemented next year and which divisions will be at which location?

Last I heard. There was going to be another large RTO Wave in October.

Anyone heard of possible force scheduled days in office?
I was on my weekly manager call this morning and the topic came up of division heads possibly setting forced days in office so that everyone is able to “freely collaborate” without needing to worry about trying to coordinate days in the office together.

In a nutshell the message today was "if you don't like the idea of RTO, then leave". If you want to be promoted and you don't live in a main hub location "too bad". In other words you are just a damn number. Tone deaf leadership to think that people want to move just to move. They should all be fired! They have done zero for this company and simply waste money. Many of us have been to this rodeo show before.

Notice went out that all central arkansas workers will have to spend at least one day a week in the office soon. The wording of the communication sounded like it will increase once they test the water.

https://www.fastcompany.com/91376683/fords-reimagining-offices-starting-with-a-historic-engineering-lab

This article should ask how much the employees love RTO! Papering over cracks. You can't polish a tu-d.

when do we expect return to office mandate to expand? some mentioned after labor day, but that seems too soon.

https://www.hrgrapevine.com/us/content/article/2024-07-26-execs-hr-admit-rto-mandates-are-meant-to-make-staff-quit#:~:text=A%20leading%20motive%20behind%20many,before%20their%20in%2Doffice%20counterparts.

RTO next week. Here we go!

Is the orlando office on 12150 research pkwy going to be a hub?