#rto

More information coming out about the devaluing of WFH by corporate America. Su-ks, we all know how much more productive we all are, why don't the corporations see it? This makes no sense other than... corporate always wins!!!! RTO or GO, have a great weekend everybody!

Has anyone heard anything about RTO full time?

Guess I should just be greatful to still have a job but man does this su-k. Guess I should've seen it coming.

For all of us in Phase 1, curious to hear your thoughts on the experiment thus far after the snack cart honeymoon period has worn off.

I for one think it’s worse than expected. For sure my productivity has gone down with my commute and working hours. I am no longer amenable to responding to Slacks or emails after hours if this level of rigidity is in place. That alone is a big productivity drop.

While in the office finding rooms to have meetings or private conversations are becoming more and more complicated. Why do unused offices and meeting rooms get locked? Is it a safety issue?

Does it actually matter whether your RTO is ‘above model’ or ‘on model’?
Because showing up 4 days a week is enough tiring. Going beyond that starts to feel like voluntary suffering.

Does logging into Cloud PC effect your time that is counted toward the 8 hour per day in office requirement? Have heard different things.

yepp it’s true. had a meeting about it today that ruined my whole day. they hired these people as remote workers and are now firing them for being remote. how cruel. and they say it’s to promote “collaboration” but nobody in office collaborates on anything. and our team is split up between 5 offices so everything is done virtual anyways. it feels like BS just to fill up offices and keep their precious precious real estate value. what else would be the point of laying off fully trained employees just to replace them with in office workers? and we already can’t handle our workloads, the last thing we need right now is to lose a bunch of people. this is gonna hit the rest of us hard.

I just was offered a telecommuter position in Minnesota. I was wondering if anyone know if there are plans to expand the RTO radius?

No benefit to this. More attrition and lost productivity on it way.

I just got assigned a new manager. He is based in a different location to me, as are almost all of the team. He only comes to my office once a month.

Me and one colleague are the only ones out of the 16 team members based in our location, and we both prefer to work from home, and perform much better. This new manager being in a different location seems like a great opportunity... Can I just lie about being in the office? Can he track key card swipes, or WiFi logins to see how many days per week I go in?

I know this info is logged, but does direct managers have access to that information? I'm wondering if maybe some gdpr data protection would prohibit them from being able to casually keep track of office attendance?

Are my dreams doomed?

https://www.aol.com/articles/cubicles-dead-says-kevin-oleary-171606254.html

The workforce is changing and companies ignoring it are setting themselves up to fail. Kevin O’Leary recently said, “Cubicles are dead,” and warned that forcing people back into offices will only attract the bottom quartile of talent. Millennials and Gen Z now dominate the labor market, and for them work-life balance and flexibility are not perks, they are baseline expectations. As Baby Boomers phase out, companies insisting on five-day RTO will find themselves competing for the shrinking pool of workers who can’t leave.

RTO isn’t just a morale issue. It destroys value, drives top talent away, and leaves companies exposed with only the least mobile employees. The lesson is clear: productivity, collaboration, and retention follow autonomy, not attendance. Any leadership that believes otherwise is betting against the future of work.

We've been stuck in the HOU150 garage for 45+ minutes. That me and about 100 other cars. Just trying to leave. Unbelievable.
Force everyone into a needlessly remodelled office with open-plan seating that strips away dignity and privacy—then schedule repairs on the elevators, escalators, and garage all at once, grinding facility throughput to a halt.
What are we doing? Why does everything have to be this hard? Why are we doing this to ourselves?

We had to literally buy the second car to our family just because I have to commute 5 days a week different way than my partner. We couldn't share the car anymore. Now imagine how much it costs our family month and all of the emissions.. this is crazy.

2% annual raise AND a 5 day RTO?
This place never fails to amaze me lol 😂

The lowest raise possible even after exceeding expectations, buying a new bank, record profits, and an ATH stock market price… literally RUN if you think of staying or applying here.

Oh and I get to use that raise for the new parking garage fees :) bill u sly dog u…

Anyone notice how they never showed the places where you’ll actually work? Probably because it will be the same old open plan warehousing with no assigned seats where you’ll have to battle background noise while you try to do focused work.

And remember, all the fancy stuff is about one thing: making your life revolve around AT&T and Stankeytown as much as possible. Same playbook as Google, Apple etc just 30 years later.

Yet another talented colleague who was hired in the remote-first era has left. They couldn't get promoted without agreeing to move to Minnesota. They were hired in the "Work Your Way is permanent!" era, and were assured during the hiring process that they could get promoted without having to relocate. Our current policy says that exceptions may be made for key positions, which my colleague's absolutely is, but our EVP is gutless and afraid of doing anything that would anger the CEO. I don't know whose retirement I'm anticipating more.

Will this be enforced ? I mean why bother complying ?

By not complying you will prob get at least a year before being laid off

Has anyone heard anything regarding U.K. layoffs, RTO, pay-outs (similar to the U.S.)?
It's been very hush-hush abroad.

I know this has been beaten to the ground but I'm venting and am questioning how harshly anyone is even paying attention to RTO...

I'm so tired of driving a solid hour to the office every single day, wasting gas and paying $20 a week on TOLLS only to be there for a few hours... With ONE other person on my team. I'm spending about $100 a week just to go to work and sit on fkn virtual calls I can do at home while dealing with dogshit WiFi. If I lived 15 mins away I wouldn't care about it tbh; but I drive 80 miles a day + gas + tolls + unnecessary car mileage to do sh-t I can do at home.

I took my computer to tech central last week because I hadn't used it in years - a test machine - and they told me Dell took all the LAN wires, switches and routers out for LAN connectivity as they never planned on having anyone RTO... Yet, here we are.

Being forced to work in half baked offices with not enough docks or desks, being forced to park half a mile away from your building, INSANE cafe prices for food that is sub-par at best - and most is bought from freakin HEB (grocery store) lol.. all while raises are comical and promotions are non existent.

I love my job and unfortunately rely on those paychecks so, I'll be a good peon and go in

The leadership will wait to see how many people walk out due to RTO and other issues before they pull the trigger again. It's cheaper to find a way to get folks to leave than have to pay them to get them out.

I see many of my coworkers saying they plan to continue WFH despite the mandate. I'm jealous, honestly. But as the only income for my family, I can't take that chance. If they get fired, do they have a safety net? What's the thinking there? Genuinely curious.

Trying to concentrate in that environment is impossible. People talking, interrupting, moving things around... I got more done in a quiet hour at home than I do in a full day at the office. To say my productivity has plummeted would be an understatement. This RTO experiment is failing.

That’s all I need to say. No direction. Constant changes, flailing changes. No ability to execute or even plan. Talking about things like RTO but not really enforcing it. Schedules constantly missed. Huge investments in contractors. Hiring but constantly laying off for no reason. Not a single technologist at an SVP or executive level. No results just talk.

It’s just a bunch of clowns. The notion of running a business is gone. It’s just about how much can I stuff in my pocket before the thing goes defunct. Pathetic and sad.

Relocation to a new place will cost spouse’s job. I am unable to land a new job despite having interviews. So RTO seems evident to save my job. Did anyone had to deal with this issue? How did you manage?

This writing has been on the wall for longer than a minute. Relocate if required and RTO or risk losing your employment if you choose to gamble. It is a personal choice. It isn't as if you first heard about it only yesterday. You will find no sympathy from AT&T if you are unhappy about the position you find yourself in today and continue to refuse to accept responsibility for yourself and your family. Coasting along when you should have been adapting and planning.

All these posts have been about the sales compensation plans and RTO.

Or pips.

Are there any actual layoffs that happened for the beginning of the year? Because historically there’s always been some big layoffs in February and August.

Are they not doing actual layoffs anymore so that they don’t have to pay severance? Are they just hoping that people quit after not accepting their sales quotas and not achieving their PIP?

Happy Friday, enjoy your long lunches!!

As voted on by corporate america:

#1 2025 revenue inducing change = RTO
Comply or Fly, corps always win!

Do the needful and quit already. They are moving the RTO goal post again because they aren’t seeing as much attrition as they hoped with the 8 hour tracking.

They don’t like that we use 1/2 days pto to avoid the office.

Yeah, they are tracking badge swipes but 99% of the people in office leave by 11:30am anyways lol... Why even eat at the cafeteria when they are charging insane prices for dog food...

I'm sure they will always say they see an "increase" in bla bla bla thanks to RTO but cmon...

Things I learned today. We have 3 employees with a FTO designation. Never once been to the office in the 19 months since it was mandated for us. They say the RTO mandate was never intended for them. Their lives have been more difficult and they've faced more challenges than the rest of us. It gets better. They are part of some loose knit group who conveniently believe minority women cannot be their best unless they work from home. It's important for their children to see them as they set the standard for their coworkers. I have questions, but the most pressing is, how is it I get warned twice about a 15 minute blip on the presence report, and this concerted effort to thwart RTO exists for 19 months? Make me understand.

did anyone fill out the RTO survey yet?

I am also curious what you all think… do you feel our feedback will actually be taken seriously? I am wondering how much impact it might have.

Would love to hear your thoughts.

If you haven't heard the latest... if your employees do not show up to work it will result in your termination. If you want to stay... God knows why.. step down as a manager... if you are on your way out watch yourself and your employees like hawks. They're beginning to clean house after this round of notifications

Parking at the Plano locations has gotten so bad, the police are starting to write tickets and tow cars. If you get to work after 8:30, forget about it. If you leave for lunch, forget about it when you come back. Your only option is a park & ride lot over 2 miles away. At least the company runs a shuttle back and forth all day.

Mercilessly spending $200B in capital on large scale data centers, mass layoffs replacing workers with AI, billion dollar outages, slumping stock prices, earnings misses, RTO policing. Welcome to the Jassy's AI playground.

Will mandatory RTO for the rest of the organization ever come? It’s a shock it hasn’t happened yet as a soft RIF. Does anyone have insight?

Hearing from various high level people that soon all LOBs will force employees to make sure their 8 hours in the office are during core business hours such as 8 to 4 or 9 to 5. If you come in 6 and work until 2, they won’t allow it going forward. They want to align all LOBs and make sure everyone is working same hours for better collaboration and synergies

Ive heard executives for the last few years have been trying to figure out how to end fully remote work. Has anyone else heard if this is true or not? Are they really trying to get people back into the office after they’ve been doing real estate reductions?

Anyone else hear underwriters will have to be back in the office in a weekly bases? Not everyday but hybrid (I.e. 2 days home 3 days in office)?

He made it known when discussing RTO that there is still a 150 million restructuring charge to "right size" the company

Wonder what the reason for that comment was