just attended a meeting on RTO. For those that are 100% remote. Your free ride is over. All telecommute agreements are voided. Welcome back to office!!!!
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My workload has increased a LOT since wfh, and I've been able to get a lot more work done.
When they add 3 hours every day to my day for a commute, I don't know how I'm going to be able to keep up with what I do now. That time has to come from somewhere.
That 3 hours is going to have to come out of time with my family, or out of sleep time.
I don't think management is thinking this through very well.
What I want to know more than anything is why those who telecommuted previously are okay for now. I mean, it's not like our situations are going to change. Why don't they just make a call and communicate it? The cynical answer, and the likely one, is they hope uncertainty will drive attrition. But might there be other explanations?
@1npg that's simply not true.. they want everyone in office 3x a week. Hence why the post was "telecommute agreements are void" - if you're not within 40 miles of a location (not specific to particular hubs, can be a smaller location as long as they have admin space) they want you to go in "once it's safe to do so". If you're over 40miles from a location "you can continue to WFH for now" - for now being the important piece. The company is looking to drive attrition and revoking WFH is a key way to do that. I'm also FT WFH (or was?) and am just as annoyed as everyone else.. I'm certainly no fan of RTO but it's very clear they're not giving up on this.
Unless you are more than 40 miles away from a hub you are misinformed and in for an unpleasant surprise.
RTO affects you.
You aren't listening. I've been a WF employee for 14 years and I have never set foot in a WF office.
I don't have a badge. I can't go back to where I have never been.
RTO does not affect people like me. It is about bringing people back to the office who were only WFH due to COVID.
RTO is not the Location Strategy.
@1ewr - I worked for a different company where I worked REMOTE. Nice try. I haven't been in an office for 19 years, and then it was the military which was totally different.
If it's the nearest office building, WF is going to make me commute an extra 2 hours a day. That's 2 hours a day that will be coming right out of my workday since I'll have to drive that extra amount back and forth in the middle of the day to get my kids from school.
They're literally trying to make me more productive by making me less productive.
@ygp where did you work before that 7 years? you missed my point. At one time or another you worked at your employer’s location. So get over yourself thinking you deserve to stare at a computer all day in your pa----s
Post ID: @1ygp+1cSQ2jwn
You're going to enjoy that water cooler then, aren't you ;)
They already made plans and even communicated these plans before the pandemic that folks we going to have to relocate or bounce.
I was on the same call as the OP, the call was not very informative.
If you wfh now and live within a certain distance of an office - not a hub- your going to go to the office at a minimum of 3 days a week.
If you don't live with in 40 miles of an office you can still wfh for now.
Regardless you can shred your wfh agreement it's no longer valid.
If you have an issue and need to wfh you can request an exception which will need to be approved by your LOB executive- that person you roll up to who directly reports to Charlie.
We are all grown ups pull up your big person pants and get over it.
Enjoy the next few months of wfh while you can because RTO is going to be a mess, if you don't think so check your physical access assigned to your badge and see if you have more then a connections center. They are backed up on all of those items because CPG is running the RTO and CPG is not even part of WF. Happy Friday.
@1qqz+1cSQ2jwn, actually you inferred the entire bank with the “what did you do before wfh”. So no, you can’t go crawling back to “nah I just meant WFA”
I never worked in an office in the entire 14 years I was with WFC. I left because I wasn’t going to relocate my family. Some douchebag who made New York a hub so he didn’t have to move his own family has no standing to tell me or anyone else to make that sacrifice.
Post ID: @1rtr+1cSQ2jwn
As I said at the beginning: I can only speak to what has happened in my LOB, which is WFA.
Your guess is wrong. We had people that were in OH no where near a HUB and some go remote after moving and getting exceptions due to their skills and they are now being told move to a HUB or get severance.
We had another meeting the other day. Our boss told us that people who work remotely before COVID will still work remotely. The others will RTO.
In a normal world, I would consider the 3 days fine and in some ways, generous. But we’re not back in that world yet and it’s that willingness of leadership to our employees at risk for absolutely no real reason that is the problem
"They are only asking for 3 days a week. I don’t think that is asking too much."
First it was asking that we no longer travel.
Then it was asking that we no longer need office supplies.
Next it was asking us to accept no raises since the bank was doing terrible, even though Chuck got millions in performance pay.
Now they want me to start wasting 3 additional hours of my day, three times per week, just so they can be comfortable that my body is in an office they control, in a chair they own, doing their work with absolutely zero potential non-WF distraction?
They can fu-k right off over 15 hours of my life every week. They don't deserve more than 40, that's the agreement. If I start commuting after years of not commuting, they're paying for it in my time.
Per OP:
"i just ask, what did you do before WFH. You were in an office."
Nope.
No reason to be. No teammates or clients are local. Not willing to risk bringing COVID home to at risk family members. (Yes...I'm vaxxed and actively mask and distance, but those don't completely prevent one from being contagious). Since attrition seems to be an issue in our org, I am hoping they don't push it in my case. They know about my concern.
OP here, looks like others were in same meeting. i just ask, what did you do before WFH. You were in an office. They are only asking for 3 days a week. I don’t think that is asking too much. I used to commute 1.5 hrs one way pre-covid. Did i like it, No. But it was a requirement of the job that pays me. Looks like my new neighborhood will only be 30 minutes so I cant complain. If RTO doesn’t work for you, rather than complain, leave. No one is forcing you to stay at a company you state that you hate.
People talk about how Tech sucks, like the rest of the bank runs like a well oiled machine. Yes, Tech sucks. Just as almost every other department in the bank sucks. LOL. Ge-z....
@OP is an id--t if he/she thinks that WFH is a "free ride". How much of your day did you spend commuting, getting coffee, going to lunch, getting more coffee, standing around in the break room, etc.? I would bet the average WFH person puts in significantly more hours than you ever thought about. Go sell your snake oil somewhere else Chuckie...
If most of these people are in IT and our IT sucks, should we keep allowing IT to work from home?
BS. RTO is not Location Strategy.
RTO is for employees who previously worked in offices prior to COVID.
Location Strategy is a separate project where some people will have the choice of moving to a hub location or receive severance. This will affect some who have 100% remote jobs, again not about those who are only WFH due to COVID.
I can not speak for other LOBs, but we have 2 employees in our department who have unique skill sets and deep knowledge of our system (which is a hot mess). Both moved out of state over the summer for various reasons. Our managers fought for them to keep their jobs and work remotely and they have both been told that RTO will not alter that.
So the point I’m wanting to make is that you are probably safe if your skill set/experience/attitude are unique, making you difficult to replace in your manager’s eyes. But if there are several people all performing the exact same job and they need to cut back on that #, than my guess is they will use RTO to force attrition. (We have had layoffs in our department where there were multiple employees performing the same duties.)
Hope this helps.
This was in the works prior to Covid-19 and one reason (of many) I happily jumped ship recently.
They have said this from the beginning. This is not new news. Everyone is back in the office.
I was on the call, too. SSDD.
How they can spew this RTO collaboration rhetoric every day is beyond me. It's so embarrassing.
This place is a joke. They took our paid parking away, too. Either cough up hundreds per mo. (if spots available) or pay to Uber to work every day.
They are trying SO hard to get people to quit to avoid severance and unemployment benefit payouts.
Charlie and BOD, good luck selling WF carcass to any other companies, since no qualified staff will be available or motivated to keep it afloat until then!
@hgg I'm not in a hub as I've been WFH for over 8 years now. I believe I'm over 100 miles from the nearest hub but I wouldn't be surprised if WF is doing everything possible to make hub and spoke cover as much area as possible to minimize severances.
I'm looking forward to the package I know is eventually coming.
Interesting...had a team meeting this week, where management was trying to quell concerns about RTO. The comments were rather vague, but also mentioned attrition, and that several team members...err employees...had raised concerns in some fashion.
@tce I’m in a hub location unlike the rest of my team. Would happily take a severance though
@azm it doesn't, the only thing it fosters is the ability for WF to let the building lease expire and lay you off because they aren't having that role in that location anymore.
I was on the same meeting. Still no explanation on how working together live with other people WHO ARE NOT EVEN ON MY TEAM BECAUSE EVERYONE ELSE IS IN OTHER LOCATIONS is gonna foster better communication and growth for the company.
Does anyone notice that the verbiage saying all WFH agreements are terminated then states they've been replaced by expectations?
Read a certain way this leaves a lot of flexibility to loosen this policy without admittedly stating they're loosening it.
That desk was typical of this leadership, talking big, but leaving all sorts of ways to fall through the cracks. The OC should get overwhelmed with requests and everyone who requests and is denied should quit.
The brain drain would end this place and they'd look like the biggest screwups ever for misreading their employee base.
@rxh+1cSQ2jwn. Because they know if you don’t RTO you would drive even more, all over the place to anywhere you want do anything you do but work. Dead weight!
Yup, it is true. Sadly
Post ID: @yas+1cSQ2jwn
And don’t forget The company commitment to the environment and reducing our carbon footprint. No better way to do that than to put tens of thousands of people back on the highways.
They have 2 choices:
Offer relocation package to get me within 200 miles of an office
or
Offer me severance
Fine by me either way.
I look forward to a shiny new house in the burbs
or
a years vacation sponsored by Wells Fargo.
=)
Post ID: @ofm+1cSQ2jwn
Search Teamworks for the virtual workplace CoP September event and you can see the deck they presented. It’s pretty clearly spelled out in writing.
@rpq+1cSQ2jwn What meeting was this?