They will loose too many employees by forcing time back in the office. Employees have to many advantages by working from home. Less time on the road, less money spent on gas, clothes, food, less wear on vehicle, etc. They can have repairs, deliveries, etc, taken care of without taking time off. They have their own private bathroom and can make lunch at home. There is absolutely no benefit to the employees for being in office. Neither is it a benefit for the employer. Just a micromanagement tool disquised by colorful language like "collaboration" bs.
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Oh man. Here we go again with ICP. Lots of big sounding words connected together but another cloud of disappointment.
Chairs will all be scrambled so we can crest chaos and obfuscate lack of success.
Bring them ALL in or lose their job. Welcome to the rest of the world workforce. Time that the elites are no longer elites.
Our meeting today RTO mandatory
That appears to be a calculated outcome rather than an unintended consequence. By mandating a return to the office, the company likely anticipates a portion of the workforce will opt to resign over the next 12 months, thereby reducing headcount without the financial and reputational costs associated with layoffs or severance packages. From a cost-management perspective, this approach allows the organization to streamline expenses while maintaining a degree of plausible deniability around workforce reductions.
Looks like they planned the RTO announcement just right so that their forced reassignments and terminations would overshadow the employees complaining. evil but smart.
@a3 you’re just simply talking out of your a-s here. Lol
Get over it! Most people have jobs that they have to go to in person everyday. If you don’t like it, quit!
If SF was smart, they'd bring everyone back in the office. Those who don't good bye. Then once in office, work tons of OT to get numbers and inventories down. Then, once those numbers are down, retrain to be the best claim force we once were and gain policies while looking to control costs in venues.
Well, if we start having the "energy conservation" lockdowns (I hope we don't) that other countries are having right now, I doubt anyone will be RTO.
@k2 everyone should meet in person for "collaboration". Getting on teams in the office is not collaboration, MS teams should be banned in office for going virtual. Please prepare daily air tickets and teleportation machines for in-office collaboration. Thank you.
@g5 my team is in three offices, a couple of isolated homes, and India.
We aren't coming in to work side by side. We're coming in to talk on teams.
We need some engineering execs with actual experience in IT from other organizations. We should be fully remote, flat, and purge those leaders not engaged in our field.
@g5 The complex problem: what is 1+1 ?
Oh NO ! We need to meet in office and have a pair programming session for this !
@g5 LOL
I want to return to office. Want to work side by side my team solving complex problems.
State Farm doesn't want to attract good younger talent, doesn't want to keep its aging workforce.....does state farm even want to sell insurance anymore? Can we get management team and board that cares about insurance please? I feel the last 10-15 years State Farm has accepted defeat and is just managing its decline, its embarassing.
So sick of higher ups shooting the company in the foot.
Truly awful leadership.
@bn and the remote workers who had their offices closed down are the very ones SF wants to get rid of since former zone employees tend to be over 40 for the most part.
@eb because they turned in the leases and closed buildings to save money. They're not going to reopen offices while trying to get everyone over 40 out of the company.
It is what the customers want! Su-k it up buttercups and get your fat arses to the office! Bi--h all you like, but it won’t change anything.
@db do that for everyone then, why is remote excluded ? Mandate everyone to RTO and do your selection process.
Brings everybody back full time (5days a week except for remote). Let people compete for a smaller number of remote spots then and make remote a reward. I think the. You will optimize. I feel gyn folks have it tough due to time in car. Blo no folks should all be in office all the time.
@c7 not very smart to require team members to return to office for "collaborations". The jokes write themselves.
Not very smart to move 2 hrs from the office.
@bn 100% right. And the poor saps like me who live towards the outside radius of hybrid now have a 2 hr drive each way. Retirement by Sept. But I guess that's probably what they hoped to achieve with no package.
Many are saying this, but, leave the company. They wont learn, dont care about surveys and feedback, and only care about themselves. Ive been here about 15 years and seen nothing but decline, downgrades, force reassignments, forced relocation. Not once in my nearly two decades of service to this company have i seen them do anything for the people so work so hard for them facing customers upset at them for good reason.
Take care of your employees and theyll take care of you. Works in reverse too....remember that...
I think they want to keep their american workforce "new" like people stick around 3 years or less, keeps costs down, and i dont think they care about quality outside of gaslighting everyone they do.
What I cant understand is why do they let the employees choose to leave, if they want to get rid of people get rid of the bad workers, they are EVERYWHERE at this company. Why let the people with a good resume and motive leave?
It would literally save them TONS of money to just let people 100% WFH, so they are willing to PAY to punish their workers in office, thats what really sitting wrong with me....for all their talk about caring about reducing cost, theyll pay extra to drag people in office who dont want to go.
Also another big punch in the gut to people who relocated when they were shutting all their offices to save money. People who stayed remote get to still be remote.
@b9 If the team works from different locations, it negates your "proximity bias" theory.
A team consisting of members working in different locations (Bloomington, Atlanta, Dallas, etc) have no advantage of going into an office to be considered for promotions when the boss is in a different location. You're probably a manager and you use this to avoid promoting your reports lol
@b9 studies are great but that's literally the problem with statefarm that someone that talks a lot or just buddies up with a supervisor gets favored for promotion with visibility rather than meeting the job requirements for the next level.
And this is also the reason why some on the next level are unable to mentor juniors or require pair-programming. The teams I've worked in, I've always questioned how you've reached this level if you need a meeting where I have to show you how to get started.
Its not always the case but definitely very common in here.
The only problem is that none of my people have any desire or capacity to promote. All but 1 person on my team has a degree. They do not pursue any personal development, no education, and struggle at their jobs. Low capacity, folks that are highly unmotivated and honestly could care less. The look like they just crawled out of bed and the purple hair, nose rings, neck and face tattoos ...well lets' just say no CEO material. When they are in office they usually go try to find as seat away from other people or do not interact with each other. Corporations thinks this is the 90s and 2000s all over and want to go back to the glory days of the corporate culture. Going to be a huge mistake.... these are not young professionals at Google, IBM, Meta, Nvidia, Apple, these are burnt out retail and fast food workers that SF wants to use and abuse and get out the door every 2-3 year.
For young professionals just starting out, visibility is currency. Remote work often creates a "hidden" workforce, where junior staff are easily overlooked. By being physically present, younger employees establish organic, in-person connections with senior leaders and peers, increasing their chances for mentorship, feedback, and ultimately, promotions. This proximity helps them avoid "proximity bias"—the risk of being overlooked for opportunities simply because they aren't in the room. Studies have shown that young professionals who sit near their teammates receive 20% more feedback and advance faster than their fully remote counterparts
With almost a decade of experience, i get paid similar to a new grad lol and they remove my WFH. Managers in the past even tried to do "pair programming" to increase my workload and mentor all the incompetent fools while putting me in the bottom of the pay range. I basically stopped participating and went scorched earth.
Go invest in your employees yourself by YOU mentoring them or sending them to training programs instead of making ne do everything, no promotions and removing my work from home.
I liked my job in claims more when we all worked in the office. I would not be upset if they revisited LOC’s. Would certain parts of my life be affected? Yes but I handled it before and could again.
Not a win for the company. State Farm thinks far too in the short term. Sure theyll lose a bunch of people, and for that quarter, line go up. The people that leave will be those who can leave, and instead of being leaders and getting rid of lower preformers and elderly people far past retirement age, they will lose those in their prime.
Every time they do this "eh lets just make a bunch leave" scenarios, it condenses the low performers, as they stay.
Basically this is brewing a situation where people who are keeping the wheels moving will pass away due to old age, and those left will be just coasting. Company will fall apart even more so....
Want to know why we are #2? Everyone hates our claims department. Claims is an absolute disaster and has been for a long time. Why is claims a disaster? Everyone new, poorly trained, and winging it. Company purposely short staffs to make line go up, which makes our customer angry. Meanwhile our agency salesmen dont understand what they are selling and will say anything to get a sale, leading to a massive disconnect between customer with a claim and a fantasy, and claim handler in reality.
State Farms cost cutting has gutted the core company, which is somehow still functional, but barely, and its costing us massively. Not just with lost customers but overpayments in settlement. Claims is too under staffed and too poorly trained.
Our executives are a massive problem, but the real issue is the board of directors being on board with incredibly short term thinking, and an attitude of "sc--w our workers we wont need them soon"
State Farm is destined to be middle of the pack insurance company or worse at this point.
No one wanted to unionize and here is the result. continually doing things they know no one wants, because they can. We just sit and endure or leave.
Its a shame.
Dont act like they can replace you, if youve been with the company more than 3 years your a rarity. Most replacements dont work out and leave quick.
This is just the out of touch executives looking to remove their boredom at home, they know no one outside of them want this.
Just leave....i plan to
Yeah i give up with this company, over a decade and they just refuse to try to have a happy workforce.
Just leave state farm, this is what they want, give it to them.
All we can do is to reduce productivity accordingly and find ways to waste corporate resources. I suggest this government issued guidebook for inspiration
https://www.cia.gov/static/5c875f3ec660e092cf893f60b4a288df/SimpleSabotage.pdf
With RTW my real salary just got slashed by roughly 50%! Who can afford that??? NOT ME!!! I already work for less than nearly all workers doing a similar job, now it us being CUT again for NO REASON...
My team is VIRTUAL. I will NEVER meet 99% of my team! There is no logical reason for this!
@a5 Exactly this. They're trying to get people to leave on their own so they don't have to fire them. They more people that quit the fewer people they'll need to lay off. If you choose to quit it means they won't have to worry about paying your exit package or unemployment. They won't have to worry about looking bad from doing layoffs. And they'll have the added benefit of being able to replace you with cheaper labor.
This whole thing is a huge loss for the employees, but a win for the company. It's fu---d.
@OP TSA is hiring. There is no shortage of candidates to replace you in this bad economy.