#rto

Anyone moved to Dallas this summer?

Average hours report is broken and they apparently can’t fix it.

So enjoy WFH for the rest of August. If anyone asks why you weren’t in the office, just point to the inaccurate report.

All you need to say is “I was there.”

Can’t argue with the bad data when they’ve already admitted it’s bad.

Funny how we’re expected to trust these reports when they want to enforce RTO or terminate headcount, but when the report doesn’t work, suddenly nobody can figure out how to fix it.

5x RTO: powered by a spreadsheet that doesn’t know where anyone was. Pure genius!

Rumor around HQ today is that easing the 5x RTO policy is actually being discussed and could be on the horizon. If true, it would be about damn time.

The employee feedback has been clear. The commute is draining, morale is in the toilet, productivity has drastically decreased, and the policy is making AT&T less attractive to the exact talent it needs to retain.

Rumor is leadership is finally realizing that forcing everyone into an office five days a week wasn’t the brilliant strategy they thought it was.

Nothing is official, but if this actually happens, it would be a pretty big admission that 5x RTO went too far.

Anyone else catching wind of HR cracking down on the required hours in office? I heard a rumor of a VP having a discussion with some salary ACs and told them 8 hours in the requirement. 1. Why are they literally bringing down the hammer? 2. I’ve never once stayed longer than 6 hours in the 6 years I’ve worked there. 3. Why are salary workers being mandated to stay for a certain amount of time? You’re paying them to do a job; not to do something for a set amount of time. I’m so sick of this bs. How can HR be okay with something for YEARS and then decide it’s no longer OK to leave early. Loosen up the handcuffs a little, jfc.

What happens next year or in two years? Will the bank eventually care a little less or still fire people for not complying?

Part of the American dream is to get a job and earn an income. In reality this job is costing me more than the income can provide because of a RTO policy that the executives can’t even bother to acknowledge a single question about. (Remember the Q&A admin was removing them during our town hall) .

3 months in to this ridiculous RTO and I have spent so much money just to make ends meet. Daycare costs, a second vehicle just to get to daycare, gas, additional insurance, and time away from family have put me in the red week after week since mid May. Retirement contributions will probably stop soon. I have about 4 vacation days remaining because I had to use so many just to handle personal life. I never had to do that while remote. I can’t remember the last time I sat down and had a home cooked dinner with my family. Not a single executive is struggling from RTO side-effects. Regardless if their position is in-person only. They get the chauffeur and a security detail, if not they get a fat paycheck that makes up the difference. We are struggling. We are burning out. We are in debt. We are on the brink of collapse. Town hall was circlej3rk session about stock performance and a 5 minute q&a where we learned about one of bills favorite books. Recent tech all hands avoided questions like the plague. If you can’t provide us answers and solutions to your own policy then why should we comply? We will sit out RTO and become more productive doing what we were doing in our remote lives. We must band together and sit out as a whole.

Side note — stock price doesn’t reflect workplace morale/efficiency/product quality.

Is it still tracked ?

😂😂😂😂 no one is on my floor today. It is so empty! I am going home now - guess I missed the memo that RTO is optional.

DO NOT COMPLY! Bill’s gonna cry!

Would that work to not comply with new RTO and drag it out as long as possible till they terminate me or lay me off. Would this set me up for a possible layoff package and I could get unemployment benefits?

Anyone have any anecdotal information on people leaving due to RTO. I know a few people that have but nothing outside my business line.

If the workforce collectively refuses to sign the promissory notes or buy into the new Class B LP structure, the firm's engineered restructuring playbook faces a critical roadblock. Management cannot easily absorb the capital shortfall, leading to a predictable sequence of operational and financial outcomes.

1. The Buyout Capital Shortfall

The entire structural transition relies on employee debt to fund the exit package for the retiring founders and legacy General Partners.

• Frozen Payouts: If associates refuse the loans, the capital pool remains empty. The legacy partners cannot convert their illiquid paper wealth into upfront cash.
• Failed Restructuring: The firm cannot execute the internal leveraged transition as planned, leaving the aging ownership stuck holding the risk of a declining asset.

1. A Fast-Tracked Outside Private Equity Fire Sale

Because the owners are determined to achieve liquidity and exit the asset, a failure to sell the firm internally will trigger an immediate pivot to outside buyers.

• Abandoning the Narrative: The "employee-owned" corporate narrative will be completely discarded over a weekend.
• The PE Handover: Management will quietly initiate an aggressive fire sale to a predatory Private Equity (PE) firm or a direct corporate competitor. The old partners will accept a lower valuation just to get cash, handing the remaining skeleton crew over to an outside management team focused strictly on radical cost cutting.

1. The RTO Surveillance State Backfires

The harsh 4-day hourly tracking and the removal of family flexibility were designed to cause "controlled attrition" to thin out payroll liabilities before the transaction.

• The Talent Drain Acceleration: If employees reject the equity offering, the hostile environment loses its only theoretical financial incentive.
• Operational Collapse: High-performing and specialized workers will exit rapidly, leaving the firm as an hollowed-out operational shell that can no longer sustain its client base or defend its valuation to lenders.

1. Technical Default on Bank Covenants

The commercial banks funding the baseline operational loans operate under strict financial covenants tied to firm revenue and margin stability.

• Margin Compression: If productivity collapses because the workforce is disaffected and shrinking, the firm will miss its near-term financial targets.
• Bank Foreclosure: Missing these metrics triggers a technical default. The lending banks retain the legal right to step in, seize corporate assets, remove the Managing Partner, and liquidate the firm's intellectual property to recoup their cash.

1. Increased Internal Hostility and Cash Freezes

In a final, desperate attempt to force profitability metrics into alignment before the timeline expires, the lame-duck Managing Partner will shift from incentivization to absolute financial pressure.

• Total Cash Compensation Freezes: Annual cash bonuses will be entirely eliminated, and baseline salaries will be frozen indefinitely under the guise of "restructuring headwinds."
• Data-Driven Layoffs: A third or fourth round of aggressive terminations will be executed, using the 4-day hourly tracking logs and AI adoption metrics as a paper trail to eliminate headcount without paying severance.

Some people seem to genuinely need the office for their social life. Fine. Go in five days a week. Nobody is stopping you.

But I’m not going to work to make friends. I’m here to do a job. And we’re told loyalty is dead and we’re a market-based company, so let’s be honest about the relationship — I sell my time and expertise, AT&T pays me for it. That’s it.

I prefer working with people who can get their sh-t done without an adult babysitter watching over them. If you can’t perform from home, sitting in an office doesn’t magically make you productive. Now you’ve just added a commute and a day full of distractions.

We’re supposed to be here to work, not recreate a nursing-home social mixer five days a week.

If you need the office, have at it. Just stop making the rest of us pay for your social life.

I realize these types of questions get asked a lot. Searching for previous posts is ok but usually yields a variety of responses that made it difficult to determine the actual policy/practice.

Before I got laid off no one was enforcing 8 hours in the office for 3 days a week. So I went in for a bit then did most of my hours at home because I had literally no co-located coworkers.

Is there reporting now that shows if you left early to finish at home? Is it still 3 days a week (this role I applied for is in CSBB).

Assuming there's at least some leeway with Dr appts etc I don't mind being in office 3 days a week. But I thought I heard rumors of 4 or 5 days in office for some groups before I got laid off - usually investment employees.

I learned that not all MN based remote employees that live within 25 miles of an office will lose their remote status. In some cases, if a team is small and has only a few members that fall into this target group, they will not be required to RTO.
WTH?
I am not in favor of the RTO - but if they are gonna do it, shouldn’t it be EQUITABLE?
Alert to those who got the letter with demand to RTO, there may be discrimination.

Wow Bac invests 250 billion on various entities. Also partners with India finance company. Thanks for working your a-s off as the company looks elsewhere . Don’t forget to follow the new RTO rules.

Since we follow the lead set by the big banks, is this next for us?

“Bank of America changes up work-from-home policy for all hybrid employees.

Bank of America is enforcing a new post-COVID policy where hybrid-eligible employees are no longer allowed to work remotely on back-to-back days, the Charlotte-based financial giant confirmed Wednesday.

This means Bank of America employees will still have flexibility with three days in the office and two days working from home, but remote days cannot fall on consecutive days, such as Thursday and Friday or Monday and Tuesday.“

The remote and wfh accommodated employees are not having to deal with any of this BS. Isn’t that discriminatory to able bodied employees? They are making more money ,too, not having to commute, etc. I mean no wonder morale is so low! People in office are tired of the whole thing. We are not all playing on even turf. People that do the exact same job are required to be at 60% or more while the majority are at home raking in the savings! Boooooooooo! US Bank has some issues that need to be addressed asap!

4 days and 6-6 schedules didn’t push as many out

At what point do we employees just stop playing along with this ridiculous RTO policy?

Seriously, what happens if we collectively decide that enough is enough and stop treating 5x RTO like it’s some sacred commandment?

They can’t fire everybody. And if they tried, they’d have an even bigger problem on their hands - like a massive talent and productivity disaster worse than we are already seeing.

The irony of this whole thing is “leadership” has created a policy so unpopular that the only thing keeping it functioning may be the assumption that everyone has to comply individually.

Maybe it’s time to start asking what happens when employees realize they have leverage too.

Five-day RTO isn’t inevitable. It’s a BS policy no others in the industry follow. A policy we didn’t even follow ourselves for decades before Covid, and policies can be changed. Maybe that’s what it takes.

The vast majority of people who remain here are just waiting for MR75 or to see what happens with leadership.

There are a lot of employees hoping that when Stankey is gone and a new CEO comes in, one of the first things they do is take a hard look at this completely overextended RTO policy.

Because if the new leadership comes in and decides to keep five-day RTO, I don’t think we’ve seen anything yet.

There are a lot of people who are tolerating this right now because they’re hoping the policy changes. Take that hope away, and you’re going to see a lot of people make their exit at the same time.

And that’s when we’ll find out just how much talent this policy has actually pushed toward the door.

AT&T can change course or keep doubling down. But I genuinely believe the consequences of this decision will become impossible to ignore by 2028.

This company may sink or swim based on what happens with RTO. You ain’t seen nothing yet!

Newer to the company have there been any talks of RTO?

It is mid week now. Where is the post on virtuals getting notices to relocate to Dallas? It seems every week this insider has so much information about virtuals and the schedule for the follow the work letters.

Have the notices stopped going out to virtuals? Or are all virtuals gone? Or has the guy perpetuating this claim left the business?

I truly want to thank the leadership team for finally ending the nightmare of a productive, comfortable home environment. I’ve desperately missed the thrill of the morning commute and the illusion of "cross-team collaboration." Since my ultimate goal is to never leave the building, please let me know if I can volunteer my weekends to help the janitorial staff empty the recycling bins. I’d hate to miss out on even a single second of this vibrant workplace culture

Seems like employees received an email where they can no longer work 2 consecutive days WFH and need to be in the office for a 'full day'.... will TIAA be next? Anyone here have any insights or heard anything?

Whom do I have to email to get an RTO extension for another 6 months? My manager and AVP said it’s not possible. Did anyone have any luck getting it extended? I really need it due to personal issues and other things that I can’t put a name to.

When researchers examined return-to-office mandates across S&P 500 companies, they found no significant improvement in financial performance or firm value, but a clear fall in employee satisfaction — making the policy’s measurable human cost easier to find than its promised economic benefit

https://siliconcanals.com/t-return-office-mandates-firm-performance-employee-satisfaction/

Will all the dinosaurs will go extinct after RTO ? or they will flourish ?

I’m forced to relocate to Dallas this year. I have kids in elementary school. What is your routine like if you live in Frisco? I am sole earner and can’t lose this job.

Since RTO has now been in effect for over six months, it feels like that has been long enough for a second round of hand slaps for people who are not adhering like what happened earlier in spring. Have any managers had employees flagged for not coming in enough? Just curious what the current tolerance level is.

(And, just to put it out there, if anyone is ready to pipe up that I, or others, don’t want to work, like the majority of forks opposed to RTO, I am much more productive at home and we’ll never see the value of commuting to sit on zoom calls all day with 95% of my colleagues who are still remote. So please just save your feeble little fingers the effort of typing out a response and scroll on by. K, thx!)

I’m a former TDP. I’m exactly the kind of employee this company should be doing everything it can to keep.

I like the work. I like my team. I like my role. If it weren’t for RTO, I’d probably be here for a long time.

Instead, everyday I spend more and more time wondering if it’s time to leave. Not because of the work, but because of what the pisspoor leadership has turned this place into.

The morale is the worst I’ve ever seen. It feels like an “us vs. them” culture now. People aren’t motivated to go above and beyond anymore. They’re burned out, frustrated, and just trying to get through the day. Everyone is doing the bare minimum, checking the box, and says “who cares?” when a problem or a challenge arises. Nobody here feels valued anymore.

I’m burned out from a long commute that adds no value. I now work fewer hours than I used to because the time I spent getting ahead is now spent sitting in traffic. I’m less productive, less motivated, and honestly just exhausted. I’m worried if I stay here much longer it will destroy my work ethic.

We tell customers they can connect from anywhere, yet internally we act like our own technology isn’t good enough for us to use ourselves. How does that make any sense to anyone?

What frustrates me most is that I want to stay. I enjoy the work. I have a great team. I don’t want to start over somewhere else even though I know I could. But every day this RTO policy makes that decision to leave a little easier.

If leadership is wondering why the younger employees aren’t staying, maybe stop asking why they’re leaving and start asking why you’re giving them reasons to. The job isn’t pushing us away. Leadership’s decisions, RTO policy, and resulting toxic culture and rock bottom morale are.

Software org got it first. Curious if other orgs are hearing the same thing. This is more restrictive than pre covid now.

Get special dispensation to work from Hawaii.

Don't get me wrong, if I could surf, pick pineapples, and eat breadfruit on my lunch break I'd be all over that sh-t.

But RTO either applies to everyone or it applies to no one.

• Show up at the office at 8am
• 8 hours of Teams calls with people in a different state/office or working from home
• 30 minute lunch break
• Leave at 4PM and drive two hours home
• Question the point of it all

It doesn’t get better than this!

Virtuals run this company and create the rules. All others get yourself to Dallas HQ.

Any new RTO info in the last hour? :)

Someone is abusing the original goal of this site by constantly discussing RTO and tracking data.

If you got a job and worried about RTO, then maybe LinkedIn and Reddit is where you should be. To keep discussing RTO here is ridiculous while people worried about overall job security.

I had to get some papers and my sunglasses from my desk at 388 NYC today. Tapped in just after dawn, left and was home by 9am, that counts as a office day. I moved my mouse every 5-7mts or so from home and did virtually nothing today. I'll take off Thursday/Friday so that's my 'office' for the week and my boss and MD know. No RIF for me because I'm like Lancôme, worth it! Be useless my friends....

This issue needs to be addressed before the new AT&T headquarters in Plano opens.

The Plano campus will have pickleball courts, which means employees may soon be competing against one another on a regular basis. However, virtual employees already have a major advantage: they do not have to spend up to two hours each day commuting to and from the Dallas headquarters.

While the rest of us are sitting in traffic, virtual employees could be using that time to practice their serves, improve their game, and prepare for the Plano courts. By the time the new headquarters opens, employees who have been commuting may be years behind in pickleball development.

This creates a serious fairness issue. The Plano pickleball courts should be a level playing field, but that will not be possible if one group has had significantly more time to practice simply because of where they work.

Leadership needs to act now, before the competitive gap becomes impossible to close. I am requesting that virtual employees return to the office so everyone has the same commuting obligations and the same opportunity to prepare.

We cannot wait until the first Plano pickleball tournament to realize that this problem should have been handled sooner. The integrity of AT&T pickleball is at stake and the time to act is now before it is too late.

The July total possible working days appear to be overstated. With Independence Day observed on 07/03/26, the total should be 22 working days; however, it is currently posted as 23. This discrepancy suggests that U.S. Bank may no longer be observing the country’s Independence Day.

What is HR’s current RTO status? Has there been anything official communicated?