Thread regarding AT&T layoffs

Long ago, when Donovan had only ATO, he had a town meeting in NJ - and there were empty seats due to so many employees telecommuting. As per the story I was told, he then made it difficult in his org for people to work from home (in other words - not allowed). Perhaps since he has a larger organization, he can impact more with his decision.

I believe everyone can agree, the company wants employees - especially those older in a higher salary bracket, to leave willingly (no severance). By forcing the older and most likely remote telecommuter to go into an office will encourage them to retire. The younger impacted telecommuter who goes to another company is simply a casualty of the decision and like the older worker, can be replaced.

Some collaboration can work among office workers - that is, if others work in your location. However, in an office setting, those side conversations and coworkers dropping in are often disrupting to the work flow, which doesn't happen when working from home.

I don’t know anyone who wants their conversation overheard & have someone ‘jump in’ & say ‘I can help you with that’. You sound lije an advertisement 🙄

It’s just a way for this archaic company to be d---s to everyone. All they care about is looking for more ways to micromanage everyone. If there’s a way to make your job less enjoyable, management will take advantage of it.

It's an HR metric to determine who gets canned. They will say "lifestyle choice" and you're gone.

Do you know someone let go because they violated the telecommuting policy ?

Q is good but it's not a top notch collaboration tool. ATT needs to make Q more like Slack, then it woukd be easier to collaborate while working from home.

The problem with studies like the one posted is that they fail to capture the value of side conversations, office chats, and cross pollination that happen ad hoc in an office. These don't lead to direct output from the former WFH employee, but the overall network effect is tremendous on a broad scale.

Much easier to overhear someone's problem and jump in with "I can help you with that!" in person. This never happens over Q because Q does not have channels like Slack.

So employees like you, will be miserable enough to quit.

I think they need to shed headcount and frustrating good employees will make them leave. Deadwood will stay.

There's some abuse of telecommuting by people who are just as unproductive when they sit in a cube. Forcing them into a collaboration zone negates any remaining shred of productivity, if any exists.

Instead of documenting real lack of performance and culling out the slacker, it's easier for inept leadership to just take attendance and make life worse for everyone.

It's a train wreck putting these legacy nepotism hires & sub-average goofs into a pile together with people who are capable. Lose-lose.

The management doesn't trust the employees who work for them?