#returntooffice

Another item for your reading pleasure. Doubtful that Stinkey has read this one.

https://enhancv.com/blog/rto-stealth-layoffs/?utm_source=chatgpt.com

Ya don't say!!! For your reading pleasure. Wonder if Stinkey has read this.

https://thehill.com/opinion/technology/5992056-office-attendance-backlash/

https://www.charlotteobserver.com/news/business/article316697404.html

The FIS building/campus in St Petersburg will be put up for sale in August. No other details or word about the staff. Just that announcement. So much for the Return to Office initiative.

If you return to work for Pepsi after your severance ends, does the company count all your previous years of service towards vacation time ?
Anyone dealt with this situation ?

One of my friends in merch told me there is a team who is being required to be there from 8 to 5 on RTO days. That was never a requirement before the pandemic and I’m wondering if that true for all of merch. I anticipate everyone will be on 3-4 days RTO soon, but I think specific mandated hours are insane. Schedules shift day to day for families. Is this true? Do I need to look for a new company?

Haha. I knew it was coming.

They just said anticipate 5 days a week in the home office connect when someone asked if they are gonna go back to two days at home. They said “nope. Actually we anticipate five days a week…”

TOLD YA SOOOOOOOO.

HBAs are gonna be gone next, regular and medical.

BET!

When I was working from home during covid, I was amazed at how much work I got done. I was proud of how much I accomplished daily. It was a pleasure working every day. Now that I'm back in the office, the commute, the noise, distractions, bothered by boring id--ts has completely demotivated me. I only come in to do the minimum. They really miscalculated the whole opportunity.

Is anyone hearing anything about another attempt to return to office soon.

Anyone else hearing rumblings of RTO five days a week?

If true, 3M is returning to the Stone Age and this is BB attempt at getting more people to quit. What a joke.

Anyone hear what's going on with the RTO for remote people?

My last working day with Citi was 06/30, non-working notice period is 7/1-8/29. So far still haven't received the shipping box to return the company property. Can anyone share how soon do people who get laid off receiving the shipping box after the last working day? Thanks!

I’m currently on maternity leave. My husband got a new job and I have the option to no longer work. Being a stay at home mom has been a dream of mine. If I don’t come back at the end of my leave do I need to pay back my leave? Is there a period I need to return to work to avoid that?

Are there still departments out there that think their manager is gonna help them from returning to the office? The other employees that ARE coming in won’t stand for it. You’re just fighting the inevitable. We’ve all had to come back in and so should you.

Merck KGaA's U.S. research division is implementing a mandatory three-day-a-week in-office policy for its R&D staff. This new requirement applies to employees previously hired for remote work. Those unwilling to relocate or commute to the Billerica office will face potential layoffs. The company is offering relocation assistance to affected employees. Up to seventy individuals may be impacted by this policy change.

Billerica, Massachusetts

https://www.fiercebiotech.com/biotech/merck-kgaa-institutes-office-requirement-us-research-team-could-lead-70-layoffs

Mandatory 5 Days (6 hours minimum) in the office starting after Labor Day 2026.

I work in the US. Remember when we were told RTO is to collaborate with colleagues? Well two of my colleagues were discussing an issue in hindi. I’m guess that’s what it was or maybe it was one of the 20 other Indian languages. It was only a matter of time.

There has been no mention about RTO for mortgage. In fact, in NJ, PA and parts of NY, the closest hub is NYC which is way outside of the 30 miles everyone is talking about. Any word on this?

It’s been almost a month since we were required to return to the office in the name of "collaboration," and all I have seen is people including leaders finding different ways to minimize their time in the office.
Leaders have families to take care of too, so many leave after just a few hours because they need to pick up their kids from camp or school. It’s a reminder that everyone is balancing work with personal responsibilities.
Meanwhile, I haven’t seen any meaningful increase in collaboration. What I have seen is hours lost commuting, searching for parking, walking to and from the office, and dealing with all the extra logistics. It feels like a significant waste of time and energy that could have been spent doing actual work.

I’m a remote tm in properties and I’m curious if there’s been any RTO coming that would impact me

Is that officially happening?

I've been offered a position at CDK, four years after I left because the culture was falling apart. Has morale and the work environment improved any since then?

When is the last date to return the laptop? Is there a strict deadline? Still haven’t returned it because I didn’t get a box from ups yet.

Is there going to be a change with the full time 5 days in office policy or not what is with the constant decision making delay and teasing about changes. Absurd policy.

Mine was wrong by 1 day. Who knows why

Does anyone have any information on the expanded RTO plan for Optum for the remainder of 2026? I know there will be more layoffs and more jobs pushed into offices, but are there additional cities or states being targeted for RTO?

For those doing RTO, how many days do you actually go into the office? I’m guessing it’s less than 4 days per week.

https://finance.yahoo.com/small-business/articles/fortune-500-bosses-demanding-staff-070000467.html

Enforcement ratcheting up?

The hr requirement is 50% for in office time. I’ve seen the policy in writing.

I’m so sick of managers lying about HR saying how terrible they are. I honestly think managers bonuses are tied to the in office attendance.

Fortune 500 bosses demanding staff return to the office share one trait: Narcissism, research finds

https://finance.yahoo.com/small-business/articles/fortune-500-bosses-demanding-staff-070000467.html

anyone have insight into what the terms are when it comes to returning to the organization and paying back the severance? is it the same terms for everyone regardless of the amount? thinking I might be able to swing taking a year off.

I think it's possible for the organization to do what they need to do (restructuring, restabilize) and then I can see how things are a year from now.

also are there non-competes? I would hope they wouldn't tell us that we couldn't go to UHC, Cigna, Humana, etc... personally I don't feel like an organization should dictate what my next career move is.

I’ve been hearing rumors about a 3 days in-office requirement, with Mondays and Fridays remote. Any truth to that?

Fiserv has an opportunity to modernize how it thinks about work, productivity, and employee accountability.

The return-to-office model is being sold as “collaboration,” but for many employees, the actual workday does not support that claim. A large amount of the work still happens through Teams calls, emails, shared documents, workflow systems, and digital handoffs with colleagues, subject matter experts, developers, reviewers, and leaders who are spread across different states and locations.

That is not true in-person collaboration. That is remote work being performed from an office cubicle.

The issue is not whether employees should be accountable. They absolutely should be. The issue is whether physical presence is being mistaken for productivity.

Fiserv is a technology and financial services company. If the company wants to lead in innovation, artificial intelligence, automation, client service, and operational excellence, then it should manage employees by measurable outcomes, not outdated assumptions about “butts in seats.”

A better model would be simple:

Set clear productivity benchmarks.Set clear quality expectations.Set clear deadlines.Track cycle time, accuracy, responsiveness, client impact, rework, missed handoffs, stakeholder satisfaction, and risk reduction.Hold underperformers accountable.Reward employees who produce excellent work.Require office presence only when there is a legitimate business reason for people to be physically together.

That is a more mature operating model than blanket attendance rules.

Many employees were more willing to give extra time and discretionary effort when working from home because commuting was not draining hours and energy out of the day. When people are forced to commute to an office just to sit on virtual meetings with people in other locations, they become more protective of their time. That is not a lack of commitment. That is a rational response to an inefficient work design.

The company should ask itself a direct question:

What business outcome improves when an employee drives to an office, sits at a desk, and collaborates with remote colleagues through the same digital tools they would have used from home?

If there is a real answer, define it. Measure it. Apply it only where it makes sense.

But if the answer is vague language about culture, collaboration, or visibility, then the policy is not really about productivity. It is about control, optics, and habit.

Fiserv should not confuse visibility with value.

The future of work should not be built around where a person is sitting. It should be built around what they produce, how well they produce it, how reliably they deliver, and how much value they create for clients, teams, and shareholders.

The new CEO has a chance to reset this conversation. Not by eliminating accountability, but by making accountability smarter.

Measure the work.Measure the quality.Measure the outcomes.Measure the impact.

Then let high-performing employees do their jobs in the environment where they produce the best results, within legal, ethical, client, security, and compliance requirements.

That would be a real innovation culture.

The biggest difference between the two companies isn’t technology. It isn’t strategy. It’s leadership and culture.

At SpaceX, employees are working toward a clear mission. People know the goal, understand the direction, and believe they’re building something important. Here, the only mission we’re working on is RTO and presence reports.

At AT&T, many employees increasingly feel like they’re being blamed for problems they didn’t create.

One of the most common traits of failing leadership is scapegoating. When results disappoint, instead of asking whether the strategy is wrong, leaders look for someone else to blame. Employees become the problem. Feedback becomes the problem. Dissent becomes the problem.

That’s why the 8/1/25 email struck such a nerve and why everyone here is checked out. His message to the employee base was “You don’t matter”.

When employees raised concerns about morale, flexibility, retention, and RTO, the response wasn’t introspection. Employees were told “loyalty is dead” there “might be a disconnect between you and your current professional choice.” Concerns were dismissed as “more outliers than we’d like.”

Many employees read that and saw a leader more interested in defending their bad decision than understanding why so many people opposed it.

Another hallmark of poor leadership is rigidity. Strong leaders adapt when the facts change. Weak leaders treat every challenge to their strategy as a challenge to their authority and it damages their ego. They double down, no matter how much evidence piles up around them that they made a mistake.

Then comes the most dangerous stage, isolation.

Because of the fear of retaliation for pushing back or telling the truth, leaders stop hearing bad news. Dissent gets dismissed. Feedback gets filtered. Executives surround themselves with people who tell them what they want to hear instead of what they need to hear. “Yes men”

A bubble forms, and Inside the bubble, everything is working.

Outside the bubble, morale is collapsing, talent is leaving, recruiting is harder, and competitors are pulling further ahead.

Employees aren’t asking for miracles. They’re asking for basic respect and leadership that listens, adapts, and accepts responsibility when something isn’t working.

Instead, many feel they’re being asked to sacrifice more, commute more, give up flexibility, and then accept blame when the outcomes don’t improve.

The most dangerous thing a CEO can do is become so convinced of his own correctness that he stops hearing what everyone else is telling him.

That’s the disconnect employees have been talking about all along and why another company will soon pass us by.

When will other cities start RTO? It's not fair. We're suffering here in MN :( It's been nearly a year since the 4 days/week announcement was made and revoking remote status based on address for MN and DC. They've said they would likely be adding more office locations where 4 days a week will be mandatory however I've heard nothing besides for us stuck in MN and DC.

Laid off in Nov 2025. Haven't been asked to return computer and haven't been sent boxes to ship them back. What to do?

Groups are scaling back on 5 days, is this happening in other areas? 2-3 days is enough

For the 8 hour mandate, are the hours averaged over the course of a week, over two weeks, or over monthly? Any other information you could provide on this would be appreciated. Thanks.

A few years ago I was in an office and passed by a conference and saw a Google Slides presentation. I looked closer and saw it was a presentation about feedback from Card Services employees about return to office and stack rankings. I took a picture of the slide and it was hilarious to see. I haven't shared it with anyone because it's too funny. The employees were complaining about low wages too. They said stack rankings are subjective and causing a lot of stress. Having to come into the office just to use Zoom, Slack, and Google Docs, Slides, and Sheets to collaborate.

Well that was about 2.5 years ago and things haven't changed. Except that for the next 1 it will be an inferno of stack ranking, performance calibrations, PIPs, and firings.

Is this return to office in September an attempt to get moreee people to quit? Anyone able to get out of this?? How???