Thread regarding Comcast layoffs

Three days average over what time period, A week , a month, a quarter, last 3 trailing quarters. Why don't they just publish the formula on how RTO average is calculated and how PTO, Business Travel, Snow Days, Company Holidays will be factored in that average. It feels like each group / leader has their old interpretation of that. The fair thing to do is to let the employee look at the same report (self) that their manager receives. How the heck do we even know that the badge readers are accurate , what if you spend an hour to drive to the office to meet the policy and your work day does not get recorded/reported correctly in the system. Any way to challenge that and get it corrected. It feels very unfair that during covid many employees moved to 100 virtual even though they live close to an office , these folks are completely off the books while the rest of us who chose to be in the office and for the most part are there 4 days a week are challenged regularly with new policies with the threat of promotions , layoff, reprimands. Just make the same rules for everyone , no exceptions, bring the virtual folks without a valid reason back to the office. How many VP's took a job in Philly and never moved there in years ?

3 days? Thought it’s been 4 days all year?

They should start enforcing RTO.

@dd because it’s outsourced to India. Idk how many times I’ve heard customers say how confused they are on phone calls and what not, or how they’ve simply hung up because they can’t deal with it anymore. Outsourcing a ton of this work has not been helpful at all, but No one wants to step up and admit it or stop it.

@f3 And that, my friends, is textbook corporate dysfunction create the complexity, reward the churn, call it agility, then hire McKinsey to simplify the mess and rebrand the cleanup as transformation.

See you in the food pantry line by December or March, depending on which wave gets us. Be kind.

@en it's not broken decision making, it's quick reacting, impatient decision making. Executives have even said this openly, we are not a patient company. We run swift promos and expect results on day 1. When we don't see results, we pull the plug and try something different. We spend millions upon millions on ad campaigns that don't do anything. We throw own brand on everything we can partner with and it doesn't change performance.

@ek The problem with every company chasing premium brand is thinking you can declare it instead of earn it. JC Penny hired former Apple executive Ron Johnson, tried to import an Apple-style strategy, misread what its actual customers valued, and sales cratered. He was fired, JCPenny eventually went bankrupt, and today the brand is back emphasizing value, affordability, and better for less.

Almost like the customer was right the first time. Premium is not what executives say you are. It’s what customers are willing to believe and pay for.

@ek I’m well aware of the issues driving subscribers out the door. What’s harder to understand is the lack of decisive action to address them, compounded by how painfully slow we are to execute once a decision is finally made. More days in the office won’t fix broken decision making, endless handoffs, or slow execution. You can’t badge-swipe your way out of an operating problem.

@eh subs are leaving because we don't give them a reason to stay. Fixed wireless came and kicked the sn-t out of us and we keep trying to act like we're a "premium brand". Every 6 months we have re-orgs with leadership shakeups and have yet to turn this ship around.

In-person posture over actual output is why execution is slow and subscribers are leaving. Sticking to 'how it's always been' isn't culture, it's management denial

Comcast has always been an in-person culture, 3 days RTO is nothing. Don't like it? Leave.

@dz Better together except for SVPs that work virtual.

@OP yes this is forced attrition (even tho the official policy is 4 days in office). but i think this is the worst possible time to implement this. the company is hemorrhaging subs, the stock is tanking, teams and people are already in crisis with pending layoffs and having to do more with less, and THIS is what the company choses to focus on? there are far more important things to do. and yes, i get this is a tax abatement thing and has nothing to do with "better together", but still. the timing and optics of this is horrific. they should work out some other deal with the parker administration because this is making a bad situation worse.

I’m sick with a cold and went into the office. Have to keep my badge swiping numbers up to be a good compliance employee.

(I sit in a far corner and wore a mask but still bs and know I’m putting my co workers at risk - my department has been strict on flexible even when PTO is the only factor dragging your numbers down makes you then feel obligated to do this or risk getting fired)

@dk Correct. This is exactly how we got here: d-mb leadership decisions dressed up as “accountability,” while the people with the actual expertise get cut, sidelined, or buried under layers and handoffs. Then everyone wonders why nothing moves.

@cn In 2021 when Dave Watson allowed his leadership team to get rid of the original engineering talent and expertise that was responsible for their success they stopped being a technology company. It was very obvious to everyone that this was going to be the end result.

This RTO/PTO stuff is wild. I actually hope they try to have that conversation with me after my vacation. They’ll have a hard time getting a word in edgewise over my laughter.

...all this talk about CX being virtual....CX is one of the customers biggest gripes with the Company.

@db 100%. I don't disagree.

@d6 keep in mind it’s not 3 days a week. It’s 3 days a week average (or more) starting immediately and applied retroactively. The 3 day average Includes any “working day” you are in the office. That means sick days and PTO and bad weather days count against your average. It’s a fair policy tbh and manageable but the issue people have is that it’s applied retroactively with no chance to fix it before calibration.

Hasn't Comcast been at 3 days RTO for around three years?

@d5 agree. 3 days really not that bad all things considered. Unfortunately it's just not the solution to the greater problems with the products that the company offers.

3 days RTO is not that bad if you compare to many other companies that mandate 5 days per week onsite. At the end of the day, you could go out and find a "remote" FTE role elsewhere. And those jobs exist. As for "forced attrition" - yes it's a thing, and also the price you pay for working at a corporate company.

@b0 “real work” lmao so a cubicle makes people do their jobs? I think most of us have dealt with the opposite a time or two

"no nukes, no nukes, no nukes."

• that guy Steve Buscemi played in Armageddon

this speaks mostly to regional or those hired within an office area to begin with, Covid or not. These positions were under these rules prior, so it’s not new. The company is also still allowing some flexibility, which is better than none I guess.

@ck Comcast has a lot of talent all over the US, and yes, many are not close to an office. Like someone said in these comments, you cannot be a competitor in this market as a tech company without talent from all over—not just a few office spaces. As a former SD, some of the best talent I’ve known at Comcast worked their as--s off outside of the office or virtually, They also worked in positions that indeed warranted this and made them more useful, as well as, more profitable for the company.

@b0 what a joke of a comment. Never seen people be more unproductive than those sitting in an office space coffee chatting their way through the day. Yes, there will always be some that abuse their time outside of the office, but those same people abuse it in the office as well. It’s truly about the work ethic of the employee, and if a bad fit, it takes forever for Comcast to let this person go. I am really not against either side of this, but I do feel managers need to do a better job of keeping tabs on their teams and who goes ‘missing’ or ‘busy’ for extended periods of time no matter if in office or in field.

@cn Yeah we are such a tech company we can't make the attendance application interface with the PTO system. An intern could have probably figured this out by now.

For anyone who wonders why this isnt in writing- its because the direction has been 4 days in the office. So no need to clarify when youll get reprimanded or a write up because basically anything against any policy could be an infraction. Which is crazy but here we are!

@cn it's because they have agreements with the city for tax purposes. They need to feed the city economy for their tax breaks. Wasn't it ironic that when we first RTO after the pandemic back in 2023 that Septa was at the turnstyles with bags welcoming us back?

I love how we're pretending to be a tech company while limiting our hiring to people who can head into the office in Philadelphia. RTO is a major reason this company can't hire solid talent (especially on the leadership level).

@cb because CX was virtual since the pandemic and they didn't mess with us. CX has teammates all across North America so not everyone is within proximity to a Comcast office.

Listen, I hate this as much as anyone but the direction was always the expectation is 4 days in the office. Then we all found out HR was only putting you on the list starting at 2 days or below average. So people used that to stay somewhat off the radar knowing the direction was 4 days a week. That 2 days was supposedly to account for vacations and the fact life does happen.

At the end of the day, it still is expected for 4 days a week and has been for at least i thinj 2.5 years now.

What I dont like is them raising the threshold for promo and exceeds expectations eligibility and making it retroactive. That is unfair. People made their choices based on the info available to them at the time.

I also do not like that this policy puts anyone who uses their pto at a disadvantage, especially if you have been here a while and have additional vacation time. Let's say my co worker who has been here 2 years and me 15 years, and we both use all our pto. Me with more vacation time is automatically at a disadvantage because they do not calculate your pto as not being an eligible day in the office. So tell me - why do they remove paid holidays? Because youre not expected to be in the office when you have a paid day off. But its different when using pto?

@a9 Michael A has said CX is the biggest focus of the company right now, why should CX be exempt?

@ad nope the average includes sick time, PTO, and business travel.

@b0 “Welcome back to real work” is such an outdated take. Work doesn’t magically become more real because it happens inside a corporate building where someone can see you sitting at a desk. Judge the work by the results, not the location.

Good… welcome back to real work

Every team was told something different by their leaders, but somehow every employee is being held accountable for it. Tying RTO to performance and evaluations gives the company a convenient way to penalize employees through lower ratings, fewer promotions, and potentially lower bonus payouts, regardless of the inconsistent guidance we were given.
And now we’re heading into 2027 with benefits being cut and costs going up, because apparently squeezing employees only counts if you find multiple ways to do it.

TPX was by a couple of years that the rule was 4-days but 2-days was acceptable. Now they’ve retracted that retrospectively for the full of 2026. Don’t say Its ok then punish employees for following the guidelines they were officially given when leadership decides it isn’t.