You all worked in the office before. You all commuted, you all had to deal with your coworkers and bosses being in the same room with you. You all did that for years, some of you for decades without a second thought. So why is it suddenly such a big issue to go back to the way things have been like the entirety of your careers?
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True, we all worked in an office before the pandemic, but that was prior to adapting and evolving into a more productive model. Some of us don’t have the distractions of kids or spouses that we need to escape from. If you do, by all means, return to the office. I’ll gladly take a pay cut to remain working at home away from the office politics and time wasted in meetings that have no overall impact on my day to day production goals and stretch assignments.
Wells Fargo ultimately HAD the opportunity to evolve its workplace model and move forward with purpose as the pandemic winds down. RTO is a failure as a long term go forward. It will garner a desired short term result that Charles In Charge will be happy with.. namely employee attrition without the need for layoffs and severance.
Nobody in Technology seems to know anything. Saul is just babbling vaguely and individual managers are like “I’ll follow up on that but nobody told me anything changed.” Either Saul is not being told anything (which is not outside the realm of possibility) or they just decided to slow-walk this until they can afford to have that many people quit en masse. If they didn’t intend to stuff people in hubs they would have said so by now.
Does anyone know when those that have always wfh will be required to move to a hub city? I work in technology and I can’t uproot my family so I need to start looking. My manager is on vacation for the next two weeks and I’m just wondering how long I have. Has anyone gotten details?
When I worked in the office I normally would come in an hour early. I like to have an easy slow start to my day before I get rolling. But at 5, I’m gone. No discussion about it. And I’m not turning in my laptop when I get home. While remote, I have no problem doing more. Because I’m home, even while working I’m not missing out on my family even if they are down the hall or in another room somewhere in the house. There is something about me being near them that is comforting. I now work from 6am est to 4pm est (or later depending on the need). Again, if I’m home I don’t feel like I’m missing out as much. But If I have to RTO all this extra time I’ve been giving is done.
OP, you are spot on
Answer to OP: They’re pikers
I suspect OP is the new head of HR.
@hif+1bS8kGEt as there won't be any west coast hub locations that won't be a problem for long. WF is an east coast firm now.
"You all worked in the office before. You all commuted, you all had to deal with your coworkers and bosses being in the same room with you. You all did that for years, some of you for decades without a second thought."
All? Not all. No.
Everyone needs to understand the executives' use of the word "coworkers". They don't mean who you mean as coworkers, the people directly in your team, or even your 2-up's team inclusive.
They mean coworkers as anyone else who works at the bank. They're framing it as essentially creating new pathways to generate ideas by forcing you to be around people from a diverse set of business disciplines. The reality, of course, is that it becomes the modern vision of the 80's Wall St. brokerage firm; A floor of desks where people are sitting and trying to get work done with a hundred other people trying to do the same thing.
They know nobody wants to be in that environment.
The ONLY thing I feel bad about WFH is I no longer support all the lunch spots I used to frequent. Even in a hybrid model, they'll lose business compared to pre-Covid times.
I'm on the West Coast and routinely have calls that start at 5am, 6am, 7am with East Coast partners. I've been happy to accommodate that schedule while WFH. I guess now that I need to be in the office, I just tell my boss that I'm no longer available for those calls? That my official start time in the office is 8:30 or 9am? Fine with me. But my productivity will take a hit. And I can't be the only one...
If you think RTO stimulates the movement of capital, you are wrong and are relying on the Broken Windows fallacy.
Increasing the cost for employees by having them spend extra gas on driving to work, clothing, lunches, etc related to going to the office only decreases their discretionary income.
You are shifting money they would have spent elsewhere, that is all.
It also increases business costs as they have to spend more on electricity, office space, janitorial and maintenance services. Money that could be invested elsewhere for productive uses.
It is a complete failure of fiduciary responsibility by the executive management. It reduces the talent pool from which they can recruit, and reduces productivity.
OP, you don't get it. I have been WFH my entire time with Wells Fargo, 13 years. I have never had a desk, I don't even have badge access. I work near a hub city, but no one on my team works there. We are dispersed across the country.
So now I am supposed to go into the office 2-3 days a week to talk to no one in person and have Skype meetings with my coworkers?
That is stupid. We all work on projects independently as it is.
@man+1bS8kGEt You said it perfectly bubba.
“I do wonder what these large employers are going to do when productivity takes a hit with RTO. Are they going to try to squeeze workers more by asking them to work longer hours?”
Which isn’t gonna work at all. There’ll be a productivity hit for sure. I’ve been working 6:30-5 most days once I settled into my WFH routine. Once I’m commuting again, it’ll be back to 7:30-4:30. No ifs, ands or buts. I’m guessing I’m not the only one.
OP - serous question:
If all employees were given the individual choice as to whether they WFH or RTO, with no judgement from management and zero difference to your pay, which would you choose and why?
I calculated that by being forced into my nearest hub I'd be spending 12 hours/week [minimum!) on the road and over $2600/year in fuel costs.
While you are correct that getting people back in the office stimulates the flow of capital, a permanent hybrid schedule seems to offer the best scenario for employees and the economy. It's pretty obvious 80-90% of employees don't need to be in the office.
I also have no doubt that state and local governments have privately coerced large employers to get people back in the office so that capital starts revolving again and the tax base resumes to a level close to normal.
I do wonder what these large employers are going to do when productivity takes a hit with RTO. Are they going to try to squeeze workers more by asking them to work longer hours?
Why bother with endless discussions that go nowhere? It’s Wells decision not yours. Take it or leave it. Do whatever the heck you want to do. You are not forced to do anything.
@zsj, so agree. I am wondering what that nasty QA woman is doing now without being in the QA lab gossiping and bullying people. I am hoping I never have to see that low life ever again.
Not for the OP but for the obtuse who have responded with their myopic view.
- Banks need a robust economy to prosper/make profits
- For a robust economy to exist, the movement of money is necessary
- Forcing people out of their homes and into the world facilitates the movement of money
3a. RTO will increase spending on gas, food, clothing, cosmetics, clothing, car repairs/maintenance, and on and on
3b. Cities are designed to congregate large populations of people so office buildings can be built (funded by bank loans), pave streets (funded by banks via municipal bonds), employee support persons for housekeeping, fixing plumbing, so on.
Get over yourselves; the RTO is not solely (or even primarily) about you.
Why are my posts always deleted? My last one just said people at Wells Fargo are not use to change. Why is that a post to delete???
Not getting paid enough. A few thousand a year savings by not commuting might not seem like a lot to some people, but it made a huge difference to others. Wells Fargo is severely underpaying people in some LOBs. I'm taking another job making 14k more per year that is less stressful. I encourage everyone to look elsewhere away from the toxicity.
Change and progress are hard for many to accept. We have always done it this way, they say. We have worked in offices for years, that’s the way it is.
There was a time when we walked or rode horses. Then came cars.
There was a time when clothing was washed in a stream or a bucket, now we have washing machines.
There was a time when we hand washed dishes, now we have dishwashers.
Old style rotary phones got replaced with push buttons and now we have iPhones.
All of these were changes to how we were used to working. But they were improvements.
People get set in their ways, and they fight change. The very idea of folks working from home permanently is too scary and too much change for many. We proved it can work, we did it for a year and a half. Technology made it possible, and technology marches on.
These old school managers, so stuck in the past, afraid of technology, unable to change with the times will eventually retire and those more comfortable with modern technology will be tomorrow’s leaders.
Every new way of doing things will be protested by those who dislike learning new things and change.
Most of RTO is driven by greed and profits. All the commercial real estate and support services for them can’t make money in a new world where you can work from anywhere. They rely on concentrating folks in buildings.
Many workers have no need to be on site, and we all know that many of the Agile teams are not co-located so all this talk about collaboration in person is utter nonsense. Requiring folks who have zero co-workers to sit alone and isolated in a hub is just another example of our failed old-school management from the last century.
I hope some day Wells Fargo gets a tech-savvy CEO and management team.
Yeah Op, I'm excited to go work in a cube farm or a new 'neighborhood' system. I saw this elsewhere and everyone hated it. We fought for rooms just to get some privacy or worked more remote. The power structure is moving from employers to employees and our leaders better understand that or they will soon be hitting the bread line themselves
My issue is my child is too small for the Vaccine. It is proven vax people can get and transmit the Delta Variant. Am I to catch this variant and bring it home to my child and he ends up on a ventilator what will scott say exactly? Sorry our bad?
Sounds like lot of people will quit. Noice!!!
A good friend of mine worked for a team who successfully WFH for years for BAC. A few years back - a new leader was brought in to her LOB, and the new boss was a “butts in seats” old-school guy. He forced everyone back in to the office. Her LOB started losing all their best employees, leading to expensive problems and errors, and the new leader was fired. My friend is back to WFH for the new leader.
Honestly when the leadership has to endure the same treatment I will come in the office. That means sit in a tiny 2x3 cubicle with a 6 inch wall that will change every day. I will even buy Chop Chop Charlie some wipes so he can clean his desk
Let’s explain it again for the people in the back.
A large number of people here have been WFH for much longer than the pandemic. I have been WFH at Wells for over a decade. The hiring agreement I signed was for remote work. I have never worked in an office while employed here. I do not live anywhere near one of the hubs and am not willing to ask my spouse to give up decades of their own clientele buildup and start over from scratch in a new city. I’m not willing to ask my children to give up their friends, schools and the only home they’ve ever known just so I can keep my job in a more expensive location.
This has been explained on this board many different times by many different people. If you believe that people should be in the office that’s certainly your prerogative, but don’t assume that everyone holds your same viewpoint or has the same work circumstances that you do, OP.
Actually many people were WFH for years. I am one of them but it was never an official on the books thing. Initially I lost my seat when Consent Order came and all the zillion dollar consultants came marching in. I only came in for meetings. That was what 7-8 years ago.
Since then I have always been WFH - mostly now because no one I work with is in my hub city so whats the value of trying to find space (there rarely was) to sit by myself? If you are a good worker your leadership does not care (especially when they are not there)
So I'm sorry for these situations to force people in the office is ridiculous. I was never an approved WFH I just did it with the blessings of my leadership as did about half of my team,
Fast forward and now you want me to come in for no reason just because Chuck The Magic Dragon wants me to is ridiculous. And the dead wood will LOVE this. They can wander the hallways while those of us who work will add 2-3 hours of commuting into our day.
Many of us were remote for years before COVID. I saw the writing on the wall and picked up a new job in a new company that’s remote, better pay, and less stress.
Well…I think it is normal to strive for better once you find better, right? That is how people/life/business/technology etc progresses.
If the world were to operate as you propose, we should all still be content living in caves, hunting for our food and building fires to cook it.
People generally put up with the "bodies in seats" mentality because "that's the way we've always done it" and because nobody could show evidence to the micromanagers that it could possibly work any other way. Well now we have that evidence. Not only did things get done, in a lot of cases they got done even better and more efficiently. All without the need of the office.
Our lives were better, too, at home... without the traffic and the stress, and the costs of transportation and eating out every day. If you don't get that, you probably never will.
I get your side of it. Some people need to be around others to validate themselves, or to feel important somehow. Maybe some of you are just sad that you're missing the opportunities to bully, belittle or otherwise harass people on the daily. Who will you brag to? Who will you show off for? How will you gossip? Who will buy your Avon or your kids' girl scout cookies? Who will you body shame? Who will you impress? How will you ever get a date again? These may all be questions racing through your mind.
But don't pretend it's because people need to be in seats for work to happen.
They got spoiled. No ifs, no buts, no suppose, they're going back and if it's such an incredible inconvenience, all they have to do is quit. Someone else will be happy to fill their shoes without all of the excuses.