#rto

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!

Why does nobody address the condition of the offices and the health hazards they may impose. Conditions are extremely unsanitary, and I believe as an organization we can do better…how do we gain some momentum in this regard as going into the office is required, but there is no care around, cleaning areas, and air quality is very questionable. Where do we start so we can improve?

I spend at least 8 hours in the office on my in person days. Is that necessary?

Anyone know if they are expanding RTO still? Has anyone been able to get an exception?

Supposedly, Fidelity is all of a sudden firing a lot of call center workers for call/job avoidance at numerous sites. This was announced last week and is now being communicated to phone reps. The memo states that Fidelity can deem pretty much whatever they want as call/job avoidance, such as system restarts (which you often have to do because of the non-stop tech issues at this company).

If an employee is not legitimately doing their job, sure, they deserve to be fired. But... what a big coincidence that this is happening at scale for the first time, as far as I've ever heard, right before fulltime RTO and during their other quiet layoff methods such as cutting bonuses, benefits, etc. If they fire a lot of reps, then it won't count as a layoff.

The quiet layoffs will continue until morale improves.

Or over the weekend?

Has anyone’s manager said anything to them about being in the office less than 4 days per week?

Giving my notice this week. What happens if I stop coming to the office during my notice period?

I’m not within the merch org that was called for RTO back in April but wondering if there’s another planned RTO for all remaining remote workers at some point. Has anyone heard anything?

I have pretty much walked all floors in both buildings in my location and know the parking situation (straight to the 4th floor if you arrive after 7:30) and they are 80% occupied. So, HR communicating about other regions full time RTO schedule coming later in the year is pure BS. Don't shoot the messenger, I am just reporting what I see on the ground.

I don't think there are so many phones per region (60% of total strength) that they'll be able to fit all of us. I don't see any construction or acquisition possible where we are located. So, just a lot of puffery tbh. Anyway, latest all hands for one of the BU's said the schedule is coming next week. So, I might be proven wrong in 2 days.

Enjoy your weekend.

Summarizing all the recent RTO announcements I've seen:

• Merch/PIM/Sourcing: 4 days a week (RTO for remote)
• TES: 2 days a week
• Store Ops: 2 days a week

Any other teams? Please no negativity just posting for visibility.

I get an interview for another bank.
So I go look at their board.
RTO complaints... desktop tracking... complaints about the Phillipines and India...

lmao, its the same everywhere people.

Does anyone actually know people who have left specifically because of RTO?
Are they waiting to put their notice in?

Everyone says they’re going to but I haven’t seen it. I’d be interested to know.

Where have people gone who have left the company?

AT&T stock gains 5% today due to increased RTO and confidence in CEO Stankey's leadership going forward

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.

I am a fool. I underestimated Dallas commute, Parking and the 8 hour requirement. What a mess. Door to door is 11 hours for 5 days a week. What the he-l? How are my fellow 50 year olds taking it?

Last year, all of the remote employees in my department were told they need to move to OH or MN , if they decide not to relocate, they were given severance.

They also were not given option to move to hub that were close to home such as in AZ or TX.

We replaced all the remote employees by hiring in OH and MN.

Also recently, I talked to people in another department and they were told remote was no longer available, move to hub or get severance.

So GK was right when she said remote was grandfathered, meaning you aren’t getting fired.

What she didn’t tell you was, to keep your job, you need to move to a hub.
Being in office is not good enough, must be in one of the hub

Sick of all the complaining about RTO as though it's somehow outrageous for a company to ask employees to work the way they were originally hired to work.

Companies are generally entitled to make reasonable changes to how work is performed. They can reasonably change your responsibilities, raise performance expectations, require compliance with workplace policies, and require employees to work from the office if that's what they believe is best for the business.

You don't have to agree with that philosophy, and it's perfectly reasonable to prefer remote work. But framing every RTO decision as the product of greedy executives or some malicious agenda ignores the fact that businesses make these decisions for a variety of reasons. Most companies would rather adopt policies that are popular with employees. When they see that a particular arrangement isn't delivering the results they expected -or isn't worth the cost- they change course.

In MN's case, employees are relatively expensive compared with many other locations. One of the main reasons those roles were based in MN was proximity to the company's headquarters and leadership. If employees are rarely in the office, that advantage is essentially gone. At that point, it's fair to ask why the company should continue paying MN labor costs instead of hiring elsewhere.

You may disagree with the decision, but it's not irrational. It's a business judgment about cost, collaboration, and the purpose of maintaining a headquarters workforce.

If in-office work is a condition of employment, your choices are to accept it, negotiate, or find another job. You'll be happier than complaining on here constantly.

That's not cruelty-it's how employment works.

Rumors that they are tracking that an employee is in office not only 3 days a week but a minimum of 8 hours in the building each of those days at CHQ? Does anyone know when that starts and how they’re tracking that? We currently don’t have the badge out system yet?

While the bank is seemingly pursuing a direction where employees must return to an office for 60%+ of their time, during today's All Company Townhall CEO Gunjan Kedia announced that remote employees are "grandfathered in". It is unclear the extent of this decision from the leader of the 5th largest bank in the country, and whether employees who were remote but have since been forced into an office in conflict with their own wishes will have the option to return to remote work.

Many employees have been speculating that groups within the company will begin forcing remote employees to pick a home hub location or face termination with cause by end of this year. Will this new direction from the CEO help assuage these fears? Kedia very clearly outlined that remote roles are no longer being hired for with the exception of Customer Service representatives, which apparently is cost effective enough for the bank that the Managing Committee couldn't be bothered to upset these employees lives for the sake of their own commercial real estate investments.

Kedia was also proud to note that the bank is continuing to honor remote employees who have a legitimate medical accommodation, but did not note that this is a legal requirement under the ADA.

https://www.reddit.com/r/USbank/comments/1v4lw50/us_bank_ceo_gunjan_kedia_announced_remote/

Assigned to go to Bothell through RTO email. Requested Atlanta and management and HR approved it. However HR isn't willing to send an email future location will be Atlanta. Did anyone face this?

All of you gloating over the 2% increase in stock price today, just keep in mind that the stock is still 33% lower than it was 15 years ago and pays out only 70% of the dividend. The stock has grown $1.50 since Stank became CEO and dividend has gone down. Certainly nothing to crow about. RTO destroyed a once great American company.

What is the purpose of the 3rd office day? He-l, hardly anybody does it and lots of other teams barely come in for the required 2 days & are still employed. They come in for a few hours, swipe badge and are out.

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

Why are we measuring workplace engagement with physical badge swipes? Is this how effective leaders measure employee engagement in 2026 when tech enables top talent to collaboration from anywhere? Policies like this make employees less engaged. What are we doing here? Who is signing off on these policies? Were there literally no better ideas?! We are going to become a case study: The Collapse of the Edward Jones Culture - How Not To Lead.

I see exhaustive number of complaints however I do not see anything factual where somebody was truly laid off as a result of RTO or anything else because it’s all vague and not specific. I think the intent of the site has lost its path. Instead of making a comment as my teammate was laid off maybe because they weren’t performing but be more specific as I have yet to see somebody be laid off in two years

With the new office in Plano and the enforcement of RTO without exceptions , it seems to me the next brick to topple is closing NJ Hub as this is an expensive legacy l hub, those in the know what's the word on the street

Crazy to consider things could have gotten worse. They have. High ego. High maintenance. Leads with fear and allows ELT to push that fear downward. Get even more done now! Open Enrollment better be perfect! Do even more with less! Get people back into the office! Why aren't we working on weekends? ELT is ramping up pressure across the board and the disconnects are even worse. Plus they pulled in McK and Del because, of course, we can't manage ourselves. This will be an unmitigated disaster in Q4. Disappointing to be sure, but if we were holding out hope for the new guy that did not work out. Clearly does not care for people at all. Plan and prepare accordingly.

Not sure where else to ask this, so will do it here. Curious what RTO looks like for different groups across T-Mo. I have a feeling it is not being applied consistently across different organizations. If you reply, please state days per week you are required to be in the office and what organization you are in.

hi, I am soon to be new dad. My question is once I use up the paternity days, I would like to use my PTOs which I have few weeks left for this year. Is it okay to use three half days for each week for 6 weeks. This will help me stay at home for 6 weeks more. I dont want to tell my manager or anyone about this. WIll this flag or cause an issue?

Does Sammy Sun not believe that CFS needs to “collaborate” as much as CUSA?

What happened to “One Canon”, “Transform as One”, “Lead as One”, “Grow as One”, etc….Whatever regurgitated slogans they come up with the word one in it.

This company is filled with hypocrisy and incompetency. They should make CFS come in to Burlington on Thursdays & Fridays. Simple fix.

But oh no, boo hoo, they don’t want to make them come in on Fridays. Or maybe, Wednesdays are to be designated as the big pow wow day for CFS & CUSA to get together to sing “Kumbaya, My Lord” around the campfire and do the Limbo Rock?

Whether it’s Google, office consolidations, pricing…this company botches everything.

Post your questions here so we can reference them if we actually get a Q&A session. Although I have my doubts because the stars and planets have to align first before execs even think about providing answers. Maybe just maybe the tone deaf executives will take questions from the audience. Or maybe they won’t and the questions are already screened days in advance.

How does the business justify forcing an employee to travel upwards of 100 minutes each way all week long when said employee was hired as a remote employee?

How does the business justify a microscopic raise of 1.25% when the RTO mandate has cost me $2000+ per month in commute, daycare costs and hours away from my family? Additionally how does the business justify a 30% compensation increase for the CEO when his own workers are struggling?

How do I save for retirement when I have to reduce or eliminate my contributions just to pay for this RTO lifestyle?

As a female I feel unsafe every time I step foot in town. How does the business justify making decisions behind the safety of executive security to force thousands of employees into downtown Pittsburgh when there have been two homic--es within a block or two or the headquarters. Plus rampant crime, open air dr-g use, bus stop fights, unpredictable homeless, human fe_ces along the sidewalk. Crime happens but there hasn’t been a single chirp regarding safety.

Appreciation week…sigh. What did you win? Reminds me when I was awarded - I mean earned a PNC branded ballpoint pen for my 5th anniversary. Yes I got a pen for 5 years of work.

Lastly, where is the data? The business shills this idea that RTO is to foster innovation and a more inclusive workplace. But after 2+ months I have witnessed the exact opposite. My senior developers left for better jobs. There is no innovation. Just loud obnoxious chatter because everyone is on Teams calls therefore proving everyone is remote with respect to everyone else. We will occasionally push or cancel standup because some team members are caught in traffic. We never canceled standup while we were all WFH. Our progress has slowed, our results are turning sour and our team morale is living at rock bottom.

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.

These RTO, relocation, and surpluses this year have turned out to be nothingburgers in the grand scheme of things. Nothing nearly as impactful as originally advertised. Just be in the right location and right time and you are good. Now on to the next challenges.

Should I cancel my team volunteer event this Thursday? We are passionate about serving our communities not only with America’s best network, but showing up to color pictures and paint skateboards too. These events are central to RTO to create moments that matter. I don’t know what to do given the rumors. I’ll go ahead and order the crayons anyways.

Anyone from dfs been asked to go to Plano office starting September?

Within a year, Kroger has been in nothing but turmoil. Kroger has had an interim CEO for much longer than an interim CEO should be in said position due to still unclear circumstances of Rodney McMullen’s quick departure. They have also had incredible amounts of senior management turnover, pushed AI so far down associates throats they cannot even do their job description without someone on senior leadership telling them to have AI do it (effectively to build a repository of prompts so AI can replace jobs), and now this KCC in India that will outsource jobs from Americans all under the beginning state guise of “helping” associates.

Company wide layoffs affecting every facet of the business, RTO mandates for those who are not in power (VP’s and above are nowhere to be seen in the office), and now the fear that within a year your position will be replaced by someone overseas while the CEO gets to tout a $12 million compensation package. How are associates and shareholders supposed to be confident in the future of this business? Not to mention protestors in stores, outside offices, etc. so on top of all this you get to start and finish your day with being harassed because of Kroger senior management’s (common) approach of promising and then reversing decisions. Couldn’t imagine how associates feel.

If this company was not in such an essential industry, this management style built on lies, under delivering, and top down management sprinkled in with a psychologically unsafe work environment would almost certainly land it in financial turmoil. But I guess this all kicked off because of Publix stepping on Kroger’s heels… this response is going down the exact opposite direction.

And I bet Kroger will still market themselves as “your friendly neighborhood Kroger”, with all of the marking materials created by someone thousands of miles away. So disappointed in this company.

So, a position that was once totally remote, now requires us to go on site multiple times a week. We reallyr had no choice. The clinics are as far as three hours away. We were just told this is what we will have to do now. Has this happened to anyone else? This began happening a few weeks before the vsp announcement but now it is a requirement.