U.S. Bank claims to desire diversity, but this RTO requirement shows that it really couldn't care less. All they care about is people who are able to get to the office, not the quality of our work. WFH makes full-time work more accessible for disabled employees, employees who face more active discrimination in the office (e.g., BIPOC and LGBT+ employees), working parents, introverts, and anyone who can't afford to live close to the offices or spend hours a day commuting. If you want diversity, you need to include people who have been excluded by the in-office requirement in the past. Personally, I don't want to go back to a place where I've experienced harassment and discrimination. I still run into it a little bit while working from home, but it's been so nice to be able to focus on my work rather than be harassed.
I wish the bank actually cared as much as they pretend to. They say that moments that matter didn't work because most people still didn't come to the office the majority of the time. What if they could understand that it IS working. People are making choices with their team about where to work and are still getting their jobs done. My manager and I don't live in the same time zone, so going into the office for 1:1's doesn't make sense. My teammates are spread across the U.S., so going into the office for team meetings doesn't make sense either. Executives can claim all they want that it's useful to go in and sit with people who we don't work with and don't know, but they have absolutely no evidence to back that up.