#flexibility

RTO is absolute insanity. I have 10 people on my team. None of us are in the same state outside of two people in Texas who aren't in the same city. We have to go back to the office, surrounded by employees we dont work with or collaborate with in any way, so we can join the same remote teams meetings we would while home. Now I find out from someone in cyber security that they are monitoring our key strokes, web searches and Microsoft apps.

RTO was about the executives leveraging their control over one of the few bright spots we had working here, flexibility.

Great and about time for those that already are forced to go into the office but what about us already remote? Where is our Reward? Let me guess we keep our paychecks

Leadership seems to need a decoder to comprehend the results, so here it is. The negative survey results are not about healthcare perks or wellness programs no one uses, they are only about RTO and the lack of flexibility.

“I am proud to work at AT&T”
Once true. No longer. Public perception has deteriorated, and when people outside the company hear about the five-day RTO policy, the lack of any real collaboration, and the absence of assigned seating or co-located teams, the reaction is disbelief. Pride erodes when policies feel performative instead of purposeful.

“I would recommend AT&T as a great place to work”
That answer is now clearly no. A mandatory five-day RTO policy for roles that historically had been remote before COVID and can be done more effectively remotely is an immediate dealbreaker for modern workers. The policy alone makes the company undesirable and uncompetitive as an employer.

“We trust the leadership decisions”
Trust is broken. Employees do not support the financial decisions that destroyed value, nor the RTO mandate that ignored clear employee feedback. Trust cannot survive when leadership consistently doubles down instead of course-correcting.

“The company provides opportunities to support career growth”
Opportunities are narrowly concentrated in Dallas, with limited mobility elsewhere. For a national company, that is a self-inflicted constraint that unnecessarily caps growth and retention.

“Our policies and systems support me doing my best work”
They do the opposite. The five-day RTO policy actively reduces productivity, and many internal systems remain outdated and inefficient. Physical presence does not compensate for structural friction.

“The company cares about my health and well-being”
Employees feel burned out, mentally and physically, largely due to excessive commuting and rigid mandates that add stress without any benefit to the company or the employees. Well-being is not addressed by pushing unused benefits or wellness messaging while ignoring the root cause repeatedly identified in feedback.

“Do you feel changes have been made as a result of prior surveys”
No. In fact, the opposite. Employees explicitly opposed three-day RTO in the last survey, and leadership responded by increasing it to five. Feedback was not just ignored, it was contradicted. The disappearance of the prior third-party McKinsey survey results only reinforces that perception.

Did I miss anything else?

The pattern is now set and clear. Instead of addressing the core RTO issue employees are raising, leadership deflects with ancillary benefits and BS messaging. That approach feels like gaslighting, and not listening. So why should I even bother taking the next one?

If leadership truly wants different survey results, the solution is not another email, benefit rollout, book club, or talking point. It is addressing the one issue employees are consistently, overwhelmingly, and clearly raising.

Flexibility. Trust. Results over “presence”.

That is the message of the survey, whether leadership wants to hear it or not.

Who's going to confess to being the joker who asked if we can have a MORE flexible 60/40 policy....

Or better still the one who asked if they should include their commute on their timesheet.

How long does one need to be in the office for it to count as a “day in office”?

I’m not talking hours. I’m talking actual days. My LOB mandates 3 days per week and today is day 4 - I’m trying to get ahead.

Would me showing up at the office for 3 hours on a Friday show today as a “day in office” ?

In a January post (https://www.thelayoff.com/t/1kezt9p2t), a couple of folks mentioned enhanced IOE reporting that is coming. “Enhanced” means cross-referencing badge swipes with the laptop connection to the Truist wifi. One of my colleagues who is close to HR confirmed that there is a team dedicated to this activity, but he did not know when it was going to be rolled out to managers. If you’re on the team – or close to someone who is - please let us know when the reporting is scheduled to go live. Reason I’m interested is that my managers are going to be all over this when it happens. They are already hassling people who aren’t hitting the 5-day target. If you miss one day in a given week, you’re getting an email. “You didn’t get manager approval!” So much for flexibility and treating experienced adults like adults

Hearing from various high level people that soon all LOBs will force employees to make sure their 8 hours in the office are during core business hours such as 8 to 4 or 9 to 5. If you come in 6 and work until 2, they won’t allow it going forward. They want to align all LOBs and make sure everyone is working same hours for better collaboration and synergies

Leadership seems to need a decoder to comprehend the results, so here it is. The negative survey results are not about healthcare perks or wellness programs no one uses, they are only about RTO and the lack of flexibility.

“I am proud to work at AT&T”
Once true. No longer. Public perception has deteriorated, and when people outside the company hear about the five-day RTO policy, the lack of any real collaboration, and the absence of assigned seating or co-located teams, the reaction is disbelief. Pride erodes when policies feel performative instead of purposeful.

“I would recommend AT&T as a great place to work”
That answer is now clearly no. A mandatory five-day RTO policy for roles that historically had been remote before COVID and can be done more effectively remotely is an immediate dealbreaker for modern workers. The policy alone makes the company undesirable and uncompetitive as an employer.

“We trust the leadership decisions”
Trust is broken. Employees do not support the financial decisions that destroyed value, nor the RTO mandate that ignored clear employee feedback. Trust cannot survive when leadership consistently doubles down instead of course-correcting.

“The company provides opportunities to support career growth”
Opportunities are narrowly concentrated in Dallas, with limited mobility elsewhere. For a national company, that is a self-inflicted constraint that unnecessarily caps growth and retention.

“Our policies and systems support me doing my best work”
They do the opposite. The five-day RTO policy actively reduces productivity, and many internal systems remain outdated and inefficient. Physical presence does not compensate for structural friction.

“The company cares about my health and well-being”
Employees feel burned out, mentally and physically, largely due to excessive commuting and rigid mandates that add stress without any benefit to the company or the employees. Well-being is not addressed by pushing unused benefits or wellness messaging while ignoring the root cause repeatedly identified in feedback.

“Do you feel changes have been made as a result of prior surveys”
No. In fact, the opposite. Employees explicitly opposed three-day RTO in the last survey, and leadership responded by increasing it to five. Feedback was not just ignored, it was contradicted. The disappearance of the prior third-party McKinsey survey results only reinforces that perception.

Did I miss anything else?

The pattern is now set and clear. Instead of addressing the core RTO issue employees are raising, leadership deflects with ancillary benefits and BS messaging. That approach feels like gaslighting, and not listening. So why should I even bother taking the next one?

If leadership truly wants different survey results, the solution is not another email, benefit rollout, or talking point. It is addressing the one issue employees are consistently, overwhelmingly, and clearly raising.

Flexibility. Trust. Results over “presence”.

That is the message of the survey, whether leadership wants to hear it or not.

Any news on additional flexibility regarding RTO as mentioned by M.?

Many companies across our industry are moving toward greater flexibility for their employees, citing benefits around productivity, engagement, and talent retention. Chevron, however, appears to be trending in the opposite direction. I’m genuinely curious about the thinking behind this shift .. what problem is it intended to solve, and how does leadership see it supporting long-term performance, morale, and competitiveness?

https://www.inc.com/leila-sheridan/kevin-oleary-loves-why-his-companies-will-never-force-a-return-to-the-office/91291726

Kevin O’Leary — a real investor with actual companies laid out why forcing people into offices is a losing strategy:
“If you’re trying to say to people, ‘Oh, you got to work in an office,’ you’ll just get the bottom quartile of people who have no choice.”

He points out that in his portfolio of 50 companies, 40% of employees stayed remote after the pandemic and that’s true across the economy.

That’s pure talent economics. If you force everyone back full time, you literally shrink the talent pool to people who can’t choose otherwise. Meanwhile the companies embracing flexibility get the best performers and stay competitive.

This is about facts not feelings. It’s about results, real hiring markets, and the fact that companies that mandate RTO are choosing the bottom quartile instead of competing for top talent. Investors and workers alike see through it.

This company feels like a team stuck with bad coaches who refuse to adapt, and the scoreboard proves it. You don’t win by wearing out your players. You win by putting them in a position to succeed.

Employees aren’t asking for less accountability. They’re asking for flexibility, which most of the market already offers. If five day RTO actually drove performance, we would see it in execution, morale, retention, and the stock. We don’t. We see burnout, attrition, and continued underperformance.

In sports, when coaches pile up losing seasons, blow money on bad deals, and lose the locker room, they don’t get more time to tighten discipline. They get fired. And we already have a losing record. Years of bad acquisitions, billions written off, talent walking, and a stock that can’t keep pace with the league.

Good coaches listen to feedback and adjust. Bad coaches double down, blame the players, and keep losing. Flexibility is the fix. Rigid RTO is the mistake. Until leadership accepts that, this team isn’t turning the season around.

This entire 5 day RTO mandate isn't going to go well at all, and no, it's not JUST about having to go in the office. It's about how this is clearly a blanket solution to solve 1 particular problem within the company. A "solution" which will undo decade(s) of progress seemingly overnight.

Before COVID, we thrived on our 2-3 days in-person. That flexibility is why many of us joined and stayed. During COVID, we continued to thrive on remote work. And again, that flexibility is why many of us stayed. In return, many of us (without additional compensation mind you) gave back to the company by being available virtually 24/7. Fast forward to this day in 2026 and that mutual contract is broken. What does that mean?

Mandating 5 days in the office while continuing to expect 24/7 availability from most employees isn't sustainable. It's a recipe for burnout and resentment. Furthermore, claiming we've always been in-person and have been suffering due to our current arrangements completely contradicts the recent earnings report for 2025.

Look, this isn't another post by someone yelling into the void. This is a post from someone who cares. Believe it or not many of us do, which is why the following needs to be said:

This decision will hurt the company. In more ways than just one. It will damage morale, push out amazing talent, and ki-l the very culture that made this place what it is today. Locals are upset, news channels are reporting, employees feel disrespected, the list goes on.

I’ve been an employee for a long time. I honestly felt that I have been treated well and fairly throughout my career. I felt like management cared about me as a person. Having the flexibility and working in the office three days a week helped me to get a little more sleep as I wasn’t commuting every day. It helped me to balance doctors appointments for me and my family. I was able to take care of a chronically, ill family member. It made me happy to go above and beyond because I felt Pnc was going above and beyond with the work/life balance.

With the announcement today, I just can’t understand what is happening at PNC. With other employees around me being on calls all day long, I’m not sure what type of interaction they expect me to get. I can sit at my desk all day and not one person talks to me because they are on conference calls. I have nothing in common with any of them. We don’t do the same job. Not even close. The only thing that this is doing for me is costing me more money. Money that I don’t have. I don’t have the luxury of having paid parking downtown and although I appreciate the discount in the northside, it adds an additional 40 minutes onto my commute daily. (20 minutes each way, not to mention I’m getting up way earlier to come into the office to begin with.) I can’t afford to park downtown every day like some of the higher paid employees at the bank. I can’t afford to pay for someone to help a chronically ill family member. Through a program that is offered to us, It would cost me $125 a week. The chronically ill family member did not have an illness prior to Covid so I didn’t have to worry about this. Wtf 2 days a week helped me tend to their needs on my lunch time, and after work, but now I’m not able to do that as i’ll be downtown all day and will be getting home significantly later in the evening due to all the traffic for my commute home.

I’m honestly hurt by this decision and cannot believe we are not being given some flexibility for our families. We only have one life to live and we are just passing by on this earth. My family will always be my priority. Nothing will come before my family.

So no flexibility for me??? Great, no flexibility from me when there are system problems. At 5pm, I’m off the clock. I will leave my laptop in my locker. That’s all folks!

Due to family reasons, I can’t move out of Calgary. Has anyone asked if there is any opportunity to work remote rely from Calgary, or do fly-in fly-out to Kearl or Cold Lake or Norman Wells??

I am not a troll. I am out of options and desperate.

Morale is trash. Collaboration did not magically appear. Engagement is still imaginary.

That one remote day wasn’t a “perk.” It was the only day people could handle doctor follow-ups and real-life admin that only exists during business hours. Apparently that was too much autonomy.

Now we’re all back, paying for snacks and sodas that aren’t even stocked, drying our hands on air because there are no paper towels, and playing musical chairs with conference rooms because no one books them. Had to kick someone out of a room for my own meeting. Peak teamwork.

Nothing says “we value our people” like taking away flexibility, providing fewer basics, and expecting gratitude. I feel so engaged. I feel so motivated. I feel absolutely compelled to give more than the bare minimum.

If productivity drops, good. If people disengage, expected. If turnover spikes, deserved.

You wanted butts in seats. Congrats.
You got bodies. You lost trust.

If 2024 and 2025 proved anything, it’s that forcing people into offices five days a week didn’t fix culture, didn’t improve performance, and didn’t magically make the stock take off. What it did do was burn people out, drain morale, and push good talent out the door.

As we head into the new year, leadership has a choice. Keep doubling down on a policy everyone knows isn’t working, or finally admit that flexibility, trust, and results matter more than badge swipes and presence reports.

People want to do good work. They want balance. They want to feel respected. That’s not radical, that’s the modern workforce. Companies that get this are winning. Companies that don’t are watching their best people leave.

If 2026 is just another year of pretending RTO equals culture, nothing will change. If leadership actually listens and resets to a realistic hybrid model, there’s still a chance to rebuild trust.

New year. New opportunity. Same question.

Are we going to keep repeating the mistake, or finally learn from it?

Everyone, I’m joining citi in Canada. The main office is in Mississauga, located in west end of the city. They do have an office in a relatively well connected Downtown Area. Will they let people work from the DT office? Can people in Canada chime in? Thank you!!

Any word if flexible schedules will be eliminated 2026? It’s one of the biggest incentives the company currently offers.

Ah yes, the latest RTO decree—marketed as “structure,” experienced as punishment with better lighting. It’s the corporate equivalent of saying “We care deeply about your well-being” while handing you a cage and a feathered costume.

Associates now shuffle back like coal-mine canaries, expected to chirp cheerfully while inhaling the fumes of hollow empathy. Leadership insists this is about “connection” and “culture,” but the only culture anyone feels is the petri dish of distrust spreading across every floor.

The irony? The very employees they’re chasing—the masters of remote camouflage—will simply relocate their hiding skills to cubicles. Instead of dodging Teams calls, they’ll dodge eye contact in open-plan seating. Mission accomplished, Executive Committee.

Meanwhile, the rest of us lose the flexibility that actually fueled productivity. Remember that quaint concept? It thrived when associates weren’t commuting two hours to sit in meetings that could have been emails. But optics matter more than outcomes. Nothing screams “strategic leadership” like forcing everyone to show up for the illusion of collaboration while trust remains missing in action—buried alongside the latest batch of layoff casualties.

And empathy? It rings so hollow it could double as an empty Christmas stocking. Every memo drips with “we understand” and “we value your contributions,” yet translates to “we don’t trust you unless we can watch you suffer in person.” Associates have cracked the code: empathy here is garnish, sprinkled on punishment to make it LinkedIn-ready.
BNY Mellon has perfected optics-as-strategy. The Executive Committee beams about “rebuilding culture,” while associates quietly wonder if culture is just another word for surveillance—or HR justification for not paying severance. HR and PR polish the fantasy, posting glossy updates about “thriving together,” while employees mutter, “thriving where, exactly?”

So yes, structure without trust is punishment. Punishment dressed up as empathy is satire. The Executive Committee may think they’re leading a renaissance, but associates know the truth: they’re just the canaries, feathers ruffled, waiting for the next puff of corporate smoke.

And now, the holiday “grace period.” The EC retreats to lavish resorts and second homes while commoners aka associates are told to recharge, believe the theater, and stop chirping about RTO.

Spoiler alert: the canaries aren’t fooled.

Given the extremely low temperatures outside, we are aware that the Store Support Center is cooler than normal, and temperatures are fluctuating across the building.

As you know, we have been working with NSG and Corporate Real Estate to update and improve our building's heating and cooling systems; however, these repairs are still underway and will take time to complete.

As you prepare for today, we recommend the following to help maintain your personal comfort:

Dress in layers to adapt to fluctuating temperatures.

If your workspace is located on the south side of the building, keeping window blinds closed can greatly assist in temperature control.

Cover vents along the windows.

Leverage Archibus to reserve workspace on the 13th floor, if needed.

Avoid using space heaters as this can lead to tripped breakers and power outages.

We are aware that the impact is being felt more significantly on some floors. Talk to your leader about exercising flexibility, if needed, based on your floor's conditions.

Thank vou for vour understanding and cooperation

I’m seeing a lot of anti-HBA sentiment on this board. As a leader who has both St Louis and HBA folks on my team, I thought I’d share some insight.

It’s not that great being an HBA. Though there is flexibility, they take a hit on compensation. The merit increases are based on St Louis cost of living. St. Louis is much more affordable than most other metros. So, what that means is HBAs have not seen any real salary increase. Every year, they fall further behind due to their local cost of living.

My manager came up to me yesterday and said, “I’ve noticed you haven’t been here for the full eight hours. People are talking. Leadership’s watching badge logs. I can’t have you leaving at 2 or 3.”

They’re building a list of everyone not clocking the full eight hours. Anyone on that list moves straight to the front of the line. Three warnings, she said, and you’re out.

I have to pick up my kids and they are not even being flexible for families. What the heck is going on? My husband wants me to find another job.

Google “Chevron Benefits” and navigate to the India section. You’ll see that employees there are offered the option to work from home on Mondays.

When you compare this to the far more limited flexibility given to U.S. Payroll employees, it paints a clear picture: Chevron is providing its offshore teams with more favorable working arrangements than its U.S. workforce.

Clearly a plan to force US Payroll employees to resign without severance.

Just saw Truist is calling back all employees to 5 days a week. It’s getting harder and harder to find flexible work options https://www.bankingdive.com/news/truist-rto-employees-in-office-5-days-banking/805291/

Has anyone gotten in trouble for using too much in office exemption time - Whether that is weather related, or for the adhoc flexibility option.

Specifically referring to upper management less direct management.

When the only thing that “matters” is quarterly performance, leadership starts trimming everything that isn’t a number that moves the stock. Pay. Comfort. Flexibility. Those are the first to go.

Directors and VPs play it safe. They tighten rules not because they believe in them, but because they’re scared to stick their neck out. Fear trickles down faster than trust ever does.

Associates being able to collaborate across time zones and optimize their productivity with flexible hours is especially relevant for global organizations.

Work-from-home can indeed reduce commute time, improve work-life balance, and potentially increase efficiency—provided the right communication and collaboration tools are in place.

Most of my connect weeks, I rarely stay the whole day... I usually do half days and then leave when the office clears out. I work 12pm-11pm est and think it's ludicrous to be sitting on a floor with one other guy at 9pm lol.

I was just told by a friend at my office that his manager told his team you're not required to be in office if you work this shift, because half of the shift is when the office is technically closed. He said it's an actual policy but it's hush hush. Has anyone heard of anything like this? He has rarely gone into the office and has never heard anything of it. I have also never heard anything for usually leaving around 6-7pm est... knock on wood.

My manager is also very lax about the office requirement and just says to do what you can lol.

Since I know Fiserv leadership has watchers on this board...let's make this an option next year. Just finished reading an article that researchers found employees would accept a lower wage in exchange for remote work. Fiserv could save some coin on merit increases if they allowed employees to exchange some % for remote work flexibility. What would you exchange for more remote work?