#rto

does WF have enough space? Our location is quite crowded already.

https://www.businessinsider.com/tiktok-is-planning-a-big-return-to-office-rto-push-2025-12

We “must” all lean into AI and it’s now a “core leadership competency.”

Honestly I’m more upset about AI being forced down our throats than about RTO. Anyone else?

Has anyone heard when Phase 2 of RTO will take place? Assuming outer offices will return 5 days and remote employees given a chance to move closer to an office. Do we think management has already been fighting for remote works to be given an exception ( I’m referring to those in Sales)

Where and when will these new offices open that they mention on the RTO email ?

Kinda hard to imagine they will spend money on opening offices in the US

For the employees located in South Jersey/Burlington who have been working from home the last 6 weeks due to renovations to make room for CFS in July, how is everyone feeling going back in tomorrow? I am not going to lie, dreading it.. Not only just the mere fact of going back into the office after being in a better place mentally from WFH, but like alot of people, seating arrangements are not great, alot doesn't make sense, I feel like it will be just another giant cluster*u-k.. I know we should be grateful about having a job, but I know plenty of people that are wishing they were one of the ones laid off--all we can hope for is that another round comes in the summer..

My take is that Services & Strategy is the most useless area of IT thanks to the SVP that Smurphy hired (surprise surprise). All they have done is introduced a dumpster fire of a process to "manage" demand and a half-baked attempt to prepare for RTO. Thoughts?

I know a few folks who are still working from home all five days with zero consequences. What makes them so special? Why do we have to honor the official mandate and they don't?

Previous post about RTO is gone. Is anyone hearing anything?

Without any remote the travelling back and forth is just plain exhausting and mentally draining and with the uncertainty of the company on whether layoffs are gonna happen especially with the amounts of things changing it's just suffocating. Really hate this.

I have about 2 months to go due to an agreement to allow for a backfill to be familiarized with the role. RTO was the deal-breaker but not for the reason the whiners complain about. Prior to Covid my team came to the office 1 day each month. Not the same day. I've been on this team for 13 years and I had never seen the entire team in the office until our 5 day RTO began 16 months ago. RTO has shown me that I work with some of the laziest people in all of AT&T. WFH hid all of that. 2 weeks ago I decided retirement would be the only change that would provide me with an immediate quality of life improvement. There is not much within AT&T that is not broken, some beyond repair.

Supposedly anyone within 25 miles of any office. Good luck.

Thoughts? It's insane how they are tracking too.

They reduced the lunch cafe hours, and now they expect us to come in even more? Are they trying to get people to quit without having to pay severance packages?

As much as people are fighting it now, the reality is we'll adapt. We always do. The strong feelings about WFH will soften, and showing up at the office will go back to being the unremarkable default. It's inevitable. Sad but very much true.

Think you're annoyed with just RTO? Buckle up, they're starting to install keystroke and tracking software on your laptops folks. Weather you're in office or dodged the bullet and get to work from home... Big Brother Demcheck wants to make sure you're in compliance for those glorious 8 hrs of work... you cant make this stuff up.

Since people working in Charlotte were told to work from home Monday, does that count as one of our in office days? I had appointments scheduled midday Thursday and Friday since I was planned to work from home and there's no way I can make 8 hours in office those days.

Same old? Or will there be some major news? Maybe RTO requirements will be more lax?

Guys
any idea how are they tracking RTO? I hate 4-1
is coffee badging still doable?

Wendy Stewart (yuck) confirmed it today on a presentation call. Starting in March, it’s 5 days with 5 floaters a month. So, in typical arrogant banker talk, it’s more confusing than needs to be. It’s 4 days for 3 of the weeks in a month, and 3 days for one of the weeks, via the 5 floater days.

This place truly does su-k. No raises. No bonuses. Just cr-p.

Disappointed in the firm. Not only was I reimagined , received a demotion and changed from salary to hourly, but that put me into a category where my merit raise is about 1% and bonuses are half of what I used to get . Not to mention the force back to office 4 days a week, tracking your location when you open up documents. Since when did this turn into highschool?
Why is this happening? I have been at the firm a long time. Nothing like this has ever happened. So much for work life balance

I drove by Intel Rio Rancho today at 12:15 and the lot west of Fab 9 was open and not hardly parked up. Shouldn’t RTO be filling the prime parking areas? How parked up is your site (during lunch)?

And yes it doesn’t take a guy who doesn’t believe in things to see what it means that I wasn’t just parking there m’self.

Yes I know HD has nothing to do with our business and what we do. Just FYI, they announced mandatory 5-Day RTO. This may have already been posted, if so, my apologies.

Is your January report available to view yet?

I forgot my laptop at home and didn’t realize it until I got to the office. It’s kind of hilarious how there’s literally no work to do without it. No systems. No tools. Nothing.

Which exposes the flaw in the whole RTO and “collaboration” argument. If presence alone created value, being here would still matter without a laptop. But it doesn’t. All the actual work still happens digitally, exactly the same way it does at home.

If the office adds no functional capability beyond what a laptop provides, then forcing people to commute just to open the same apps on a different desk defeats the entire purpose.

Every one of the leaders should ask THEMSELVES this question and think about the “deposits” they’re making with the employee base. You have no “money in the bank” with the employees since you fuxed everyone over with 5 day RTO.

How many people have already left because of the return to office push?

Potential employee here. I know 5 days per week in office is the official policy, but is it actually enforced across 100% of teams? I know a lot of similar companies have RTO policies on paper, but they aren't policed. Thanks in advance;

Since that seems to be the goal. I wonder if it worked as intended, or if people, given the job market, are just trying hard to accommodate. I'm in the latter group. RTO is needlessly time-consuming, expensive, and it’s hard to see any reasonable explanation beyond pressuring people to quit. Coming into the office has made me less efficient, and nobody on my team is even nearby anyway. I’ve decided to go along with it for now while I look for another job. In this game of chicken, I'll let them be forced to lay me off. After so many years, I'm not leaving without a severance.

One, two, three
Two chairs—the music stops.
Follow the decree:
One of you will drop.

Central, East, West—
You’re safest in the middle.
This isn’t a test,
Or a well-thought riddle.

Experience used to matter.
Results were once measured.
Now talent’s grown scattered,
And good work? No longer treasured.

Does it end with you or me?
Customers first, the message repeats.
Hello, goodbye—latest casualty.
One less chair—fewer seats.

Did you see the culture survey?
Breakfast and mingle with leaders.
RTO and layoffs underplay
The truth beneath the speakers.

Am I the next to go?
Be cautious of the meeting.
Does anyone know
When comes the next reaping?

One, two, three—
Only one chair left.
You’ve been set free.
You can drop the heft.

Make this make sense.

We lay off people by requiring them to move to a Hub city at their own expense and reapply for their job (or they are declared surplus/laid off). Then, a year later, they are back as a contractor, and RTO doesn’t apply to contractors.

If it is so darn important to have everyone in an office, why aren’t we ALL in the office? Why doesn’t AT&T thrust their own employees, but is happy to let a third party person have access to the same systems and networks remotely full time?

So i told my manager I went home because there was no place to sit. The answer is to look at different days where not as many people are there. So we are supposed to go in to the office to collaborate with people but we are supposed to pick days when people aren’t there. Make it make sense.

Hired 2 years ago as full time employee remote. I am being required to RTO even though I was never in the office. I was hired as a remote employee. The nearest office is at least 80 minutes away at 4 A.M. on a Sunday morning. Easily 2+ hours each way during the work week. I can't afford the commute costs. I can't afford the approx 18+ hours per week just to commute. I give 45-50 hours of my time per week but only get paid for 40. Now I gotta devote upwards of 70 hours per week to this company (work + commute). Going into the office means I must change my work location for tax purposes so as my luck would have it I get sc--wed on that too. More taxes on the same work I've been doing for 2 years. I know I should only be working 40 hours but if I don't then the work starts to get backed-up. Our team could use more help. We are down 1 person since rto was announced. Cant imagine finding more help let alone even finding one individual after Pnc announced this terrible rto decision. What was wrong with the remote work? If it ain't broke don't fix it. It seems like the executives couldn't bear to witness remote work functioning so well that they needed to do something about it. and like many others have voiced if I were to go into the office 60% of my day would be on teams calls. My first 10 contacts I ask for help/collaborate with aren't even in my state.
Please someone make it make sense.

do we need to protest or unionize just to have a voice. this su-ks

https://www.businessinsider.com/stellantis-return-to-office-5-days-us-staff-rto-2026-1

Every WFH request has to be reviewed now and approved by our CEO himself. Little baby Lord Farqaad throwing a tantrum because his servants didn’t want to risk their lives coming into the office. Heard there were multiple injuries be they didn’t bother to treat the parking lots. Pathetic.

Hi all

I don't work in IBM but an ex IBM guy is taking over where I work and RTO has been announced

Just wondering is it enforced at IBM ? Is there a min number of hours on site or can you just leave whenever
Thanks

We all did the five-day commute for years without this much fuss. Yeah, WFH is nicer, but going to an office is what we all signed up for originally. I don't get why it's such a shock to the system now. It's just a return to normal.

It all points to one thing. They're creating a work environment so toxic that many of us will decide to leave instead of suffer through it. It's all planned. Why pay severance if you don't have to? Make it unbearable for folks to work and they'll leave for free. A--holes.

Just read that Home Depot did a layoff and had an RTO of 5 days a week.......do we think Fiddelke will announce an RTO? I could see it happening as a way to continue eliminating roles rather than doing mass layoffs????

Any news on additional flexibility regarding RTO as mentioned by M.?