#rto

They ain’t tracking sh*t keep doing it…

BNY Mellon’s transformation now resembles a tightly coordinated execution of the McKinsey cost reduction playbook, and employees on TheLayoff.com have been documenting the pattern in real time.

What appear to be uncoordinated, isolated decisions — RTO pressure, minimal merit increases, shrinking teams, selective backfilling, and quiet office closures — align directly with the consulting frameworks used to drive sustained operating expense reduction. This is all by design.

The Platform Operating Model (P-O-M) is the structural engine behind this shift. By standardizing processes, consolidating technology, and centralizing work into platform hubs, P-O-M enables organizational delayering, automation, and location strategy at scale. Employees describe this as work being “platformed,” automated, or reassigned to lower cost regions, particularly Pune.

International labor laws also shape the strategy. In the U.S. and U.K., strict notification rules, severance expectations, and WARN Act thresholds make large layoffs expensive and highly visible. In contrast, offshore hubs operate under more flexible labor regimes, allowing faster scaling, easier restructuring, and lower long term cost commitments. This is why employees increasingly observe that even offshore roles are not permanent; as the cost model scales globally, work continues migrating to the lowest cost compliant jurisdiction available.

RTO, low raises, and real estate consolidation are deliberate levers within this model: RTO increases voluntary attrition, minimal wage growth suppresses labor cost inflation, office closures reduce fixed costs and concentrate work in platform hubs.

The TheLayoff.com threads reflect this architecture in motion — “stealth layoffs,” “jobs shifting offshore,” “constant reorganizations,” and “RTO used as a filter” — all consistent with a long horizon, platform driven cost transformation strategy.

If RTO policies are enforced with strict measurement, tracking, and compliance expectations across employees, why doesn’t the same rigor apply to Cloud leadership (Head of Cloud and his directs)?

GL17/GL18 leaders—many already significantly compensated from prior Amazon equity and long industry tenure—operate with materially less visible accountability, while execution is heavily dependent on engineering teams under them or contracting firms.

The pattern is consistent: delivery is externalized or engineering team , credit is cloud leadership , and accountability becomes diffused.

If operational discipline is the standard, it cannot be selective. It must apply uniformly across all levels—including senior leadership—based on measurable impact, not hierarchy.

Otherwise, it stops being governance and becomes structural protection of the top layer.

If anyone is negatively impacted by "not meeting the RTO goal" and is fired, you better run and file a case. Document that they admitted their data and reporting was inaccurate and inconsistent. They falsified reporting!!! Also, its a tad bit discriminatory if they are punishing people inconsistently and there is no Policy or equal treatment but "discretionary". This is too easy and seems targeted. Are you over 40? A woman? A POC? Regardless of whether people like it or not, there are laws that are still applicable and you cannot target, discriminate or retaliate. File complaints. Document! Document! Document! Our HR is a joke! They leave it vague depending on no one knowing their rights and think their too big of a company to fail. Learn your rights and how to fight. Too many running on fear and thats how they got you.

Been thinking about this a lot lately. Going back to four days a week in the office with the open plan unassigned seating (HMP) has definitely brought some good energy. You run into folks from different teams, have those quick real-time conversations, and get problems solved faster than the endless email chains we had before. Its helped cut down on friction and made collaboration feel smoother.

That said, I keep noticing how our field teams run on a solid 5-day rhythm and it shows in their consistency and momentum. Maybe bringing the office side to a full 5 days could line everything up even better across the company. Wrapping the week strong with everyone in on Friday, plus the occasional half-day on Saturday when it makes sense, might give us that extra edge to stay ahead of the competition and feel more like one-team.

Chevrons culture already feels special, and pushing a bit more on the in-office side could make it even stronger. Its one of the reasons Im still optimistic about sticking around long-term.

Anyone else seeing similar things? Especially curious how the current 4-day setup is landing for field and ops folks. Are you noticing quicker decisions or better handoffs, or do you think more consistent office time would help?

Every time I see stories about “coffee badging,” it’s hard not to feel frustrated. Some people are effectively gaming the system and collecting paychecks, while others are putting in real effort and trying to make a meaningful contribution.

FIRE THEM ALL!

How many in here moved to Dallas and what decision led you and your families to do so? My family is going through a forced relocation. We are choosing to move to keep the job, for some social life and probably better opportunities for jobs.

Is it true that we are being asked to move in July? Manager has no information. Told that we have time till September. Looking aggressively for an opening in Philly area jut no luck. Have to start looking for apartments if moved to NYC than commuting.

Apartments are very unaffordable in N Jersey or NYC suburbs with commuting time and cost. The overall tax impact is also high, if one has to move to NYC location.

Effectively a pay cut in these hard times.

Yet there are only five days left. Any ideas? Am I sc--wed? Has anyone hacked into the Workstyle database?

I'd say they depends on how they were hired. If they were hired during covid as 100% remote, the salary they negotiated took into account the lack of a commute. Dell has changed that deal now. You don't think those folks have a right to feel a little pi---d? I negotiate/expect 20% higher salary to be in the office.

If they were hired onsite, and went remote during covid, they have nothing really to complain about, but Dell hired a ton of people full time remote during covid and has spent the last 2 years trying to sc--w them into quitting. That's a problem, and even the "get back in the office" types should be able to recognize that.

This, @av+1kpdrarz1.

No revelations yet, besides my expenses going up and feeling like they want to get rid of us. I haven't met new people, I haven't expanded collaboration beyond my usual circle (whom I communicate with online), and I most definitely haven't become more creative. I do focus less, and my productivity has fallen somewhat, so there's that.

Just saying.
The whole thing makes no sense.
Why come in at all.

OK, so I come in, 40 min commute one way, but it's OK.

Then I spend all day in meetings with bunch of folks who are not here, everyone is calling in.

Then I spend 40 minutes again going home.

The whole thing makes no sense, the higher up you go, the less of them are in the office.

I cannot do anything about it but it feels a little bit better after writing this. Sorry about the negative energy.

I have a hard time believing this is just about managing real estate.

Especially with gas prices climbing. And since raises don't keep up with actual inflation, the rumored 5-day RTO would fit perfectly with their plan to push out as many of us as they can.

Leadership is clearly on an attrition drive, and making people quit on their own has been a main goal of RTO from the very beginning.

This 4 days a week sitting in a cubicle is literally soul crushing. I worked remotely or mostly remotely for years before CVX and only came here under the guise of flexible work and I would give up an annual bonus and $30k a year to wfh. If the hiring market weren’t so dismal I’d already be out.

I heard through the grapevine that a certain role in the private bank is being switched to remote ahead of the RTO mandate. This role has pretty much ignored all previous in-office mandates and is 90% men. Not a good look. Managers in other roles are told their jobs are on the line if their employees don’t comply.

Due to the new Formula, you will have to come in extra days if you have Vacation and Sick time if you want to hit the 60%.

How is this legal? So 11 days was good, but now they say it’s no good because new rule is 14 to 15 days, depending on the month. Applies retroactively since January since expectations was to be in office…but for 15 days????

My manager says I am on a list for not being onsite enough from January to now. They are reporting out attendance percentages.

That's a rhetorical question, by the way.

This won't be layoff in the traditional sense, it will be realign/restructure/RTO for company needs orne forced out maybe some early retirement for people. But SF doesn't need layoffs when they can just pull the right levers and force people to leave. That last giant survey we did a few months back was just them finding out how far they can turn the dial each time to achieve the desired effect.
OP: @eb+1kp6mkfmf

Bumping this up for visibility.

Curious if anybody else works on the weekend and isn't seeing it reflected in the time tracking. I don't work weekends regularly, but need to be in the office for certain software changes/deployments. I've, with my managers acknowledgement, treated this as part of my RTO days, but now I'm out 2-3 days what was previously shown.

I'm not going to waste time going on and on about the same things but who is actually going in to work at 8/9 and staying till 5pm? Obviously RTO 5 days means working from the office all 5 days but there's no way in he-l the majority is willingly going to go from WFH to now commuting to an office just to sit there for 8 hours.

Curious if anyone’s been getting logged out daily. Thinking it has something to do with tracking for RTO

My hub has reduced trash pickup to 3 days a week, there are heaping piles of trash sticking out of the bins and spilling onto the floor. How about you?

I haven’t left my house since, ya know, the global pandemic that ravaged our world sent us all to WFH. So this new and unexpected RTO has taken a major toll on my anxiety.

My therapist wrote me a note to take to HR, detailing my agoraphobia, unfortunately to no avail. TODAY My manager said that my condition is not a valid excuse to not RTO and I will be expected to be in the office 5 days. I have not stopped crying since we got off our meeting at 4:50. I don’t know what to do.

Should I take this directly to the head of HR? Or the CEO? Any advice is appreciated!

With the new RTO tracking being through IP and not swipes, has anyone heard anything about if changing location from hub to branch would be an option? The excuse used to be that it couldn’t be tracked.

They give half-baked answers, I don't feel like asking any. F the policy.

But Employee visited maybe once a week or month. Additionally, there are various tools and adapters available that allow for remote access to different ports without violating any Information Security controls or processes (very simple tools on Amazon/Ebay).

The introduction of the USB New RTO policy, which includes a 2026 Talent and Performance Metric that logs hours at a hub or triggers a Performance Improvement Plan (PIP), has become a subject of humor within the corporate environment, often leading to memes that ridicule the corporate productivity policy and how not to be a CEO or how not to treat your employees.

How is this possible? We need to speak our truth!!

Here’s what Glassdoor has for USB:
U.S. Bank Snapshot
3.3 overall rating (out of 5)
based on 11,947 ratings
49% would recommend to a friend
29% approve of the CEO (I agree with this one)

Go in and let your voice be heard. I just changed my rating and gave my review based on the latest mess with RTO.

Google ATT RTO lawsuit.

Citi will be next to announce a 5 day RTO model. Almost certain the announcement will happen by July.

Today Trump acknowledged fuel costs would not decrease until November, if even then.

This is a really d-mb place to ask this but since I know this will get eyes...

I am a former employee who had an incorrect address listed under my FIS workday to get around the RTO policy.

How can I get at my W2 now? I haven't worked there in like 5 months at this point. Anyone know?

If they've botched this single issue so thoroughly, is it any surprise the whole business feels like it's about to tip over?

For decades people and culture has been the strength of AT&T. I was 33
when I started at T 14 years ago. Probably the longest employment I have. The folks who were in their 40s and 50s when I started are now retiring. I lost many people already to age and RTO and supposed this trend continues. Barring some directors, my team largely is full of college kids and TDPs. At this point, I feel like I am that soon to be 50 year old in an environment which is more toxic than my predecessors started. The circle of life continues and I now contemplating to start fresh elsewhere.

Just wanted to vent on the whole connect week policy for regional centers- I'm quite frankly embarrassed to hold client zoom meetings when in the office- that clients have to hear the background noise of loud talking, laughing and coughing. I understand the loud talking as we are all raising our levels to ensure our clients can hear us over our colleagues. I wonder what client's impressions would be if they could actually see behind the scenes. All the negativity I see & hear from co-workers on the fact they have to go into the office isn't helping my morale either. At the end of the connect week I continually ask myself why did I need to go into the office? Not only did I not gain anything from it other than another cold/ flu virus but feel demoralized & with less money in my pocket after filling up my car.

It says that Mac and VID data is still being fixed. My numbers are extremely wrong, but I'm skeptical they'll ever be fixed. Does anyone know anything?