Thread regarding Bank of America layoffs

Quiet quit and continue looking for something fully remote. That’s what I did. Mail it in….this place doesn’t deserve or pay for your best work. Sooner or later they will have no choice but to reverse course and offer more flexibility. Good luck finding anyone under 40 willing to come to office 5 days p/week ever again.

MyWork ABSOLUTELY had people who were taking advantage of the option and it was well known. It actually was one of the key drivers for shrinking the program.

MyWork originally started b/c there was overcrowding and not enough seats to accommodate all employees. I never heard issues around people "taking advantage" and never had trouble reaching anyone who was on it.

It was stopped for a number of reasons. Am sure there are others, but a few include:

1. Employer tax rule changes made the tracking, reporting, payment of Employer Taxes across the many different jurisdications more burdensome and expensive.
2. The move to open floor plans by some stupid consulting firm made it possible to fit more people at lower cost. When they invested in the conversion, they wanted people to use it. (with disastrous results from the Employee Perspective - which they claim to care about, but obviously do not. Those spaces are filthy and loud.)
3. Commercial Real Estate commitments: Too expensive to get out of contracts, bank has to carry the costs, so they want people using those spaces.
4. Expense (again): coming off of 2 years of overhiring, it's cheaper to mandate people return so they leave and Employer avoids having to pay severance and bad PR.

It all comes down to expense one way or the other. That's all they care about.

Pre-COVID there was a program called MyWork. It allowed people to WFH but there were so many rules around them… rules that I think people took advantage of. I’m not sure if that was one of the reasons they wanted to get rid of it. My recollection is slightly fuzzy but I believe it went something like this because I was on the program for many years. I may be slightly off on some details because it was a long time ago.

Basically, as a new hire, I think you had to be in the office every day for a minimum of one year before you could even apply to be in the program. Then your manager had to approve it, there was some online video training, and you had to sign some documents stating that you knew the program was only meant to be a replica of the setup you had in the office (but from home).

I think if you were a senior exec (B1-3) you were still expected to be in the office and if you were a lower admin teammate (B7-9?), you were also expected to be in the office to support the execs. The majority of people on MyWork were B4-6.

That said, the program wasn’t designed to be a flexible work program. It was only designed to be a remote WFH program. You had to sign all kinds of paperwork that you would continue to work exactly as if you were in the office (you would be at your desk, you wouldn’t step away to feed your kids because if you were in the office the kids would be at childcare, etc) - basically, it was designed to replicate your time in the office (but you’d be allowed to do it from home). It wasn’t a “flexible” program. Just a remote program. I remember in the document I signed, there was even some language that talked about dress code and that we were still expected to dress as if we were in the office so that when we met on telepresence or virtually it would mirror being in the office.

But slowly I think people started taking advantage by turning “remote work” into “flexible work.” They started dressing in sweats or not even showing their face in virtual calls. They stopped paying for childcare and kids were at home and you’d hear them crying on calls. Instead of working, they’d be taking care of their kids. They’d go to soccer games during work hours. They’d go out to run errands during work time. And they weren’t reachable. You would get lots of excuses like “I’m so sorry my computer was down” or “I’m so sorry I’ve been swamped and am now just seeing your email” but everyone knew based on social media posts and conversations that people were painting their homes, remodeling, feeding their kids, etc. Even though they signed documents starting that MyWork was not a substitute for child care as an example, they did it anyway.

Not everyone took advantage but I think those who did kind of ruined it for everyone else.

The benefit of the program to the bank was that they would free up real estate, saving them money. The benefit to the employee was the ability to hours on the commute. The benefit to everyone was less gas emissions. Everyone was happy back then.

Again I could be off on some of the details. It’s been many years since I was on the program but I was on it for about 6 years.

There are advantages to both working from home or at the office. 2-3 days a week in the office is acceptable providing that it is NOT monitored. Employees with performance issues should be in the office more than 3 days a week as conditions are warranted. Just my thought. However, the issue is not resources but a show of power projection by upper and middle management. You know the types who like to dress up and pranced around in the workplace pretending to be the most important people in your lives. Yep, they can choke on that belief. And then you have the bean counters reporting underutilized real estate costing the company unnecessary expenses. Management's solution is to have everybody return back to the office everyday to justify expenses. Yet, you can close the building(s) and have the people work from home and save the company money. Hmmm, I don't understand the corporate math.

Will there be a return to pre-pandemic days? I believe so... Will it last, no. Look at current events. Posts below mentioned about AI. Just remember the IT adage, garbage in, garbage out. I envision AI at times to be in an infinite loop as I experienced in some IVR systems that I used lately. Furthermore, can AI be implicated in the court room if the systems sc--w up and costing the company billions. Some employees (and politicians) are advocating 4 day work weeks. Will that continue to all industries throughout America. Probably, but right now companies have the upper hand with hiring and retention demands. Eventually like before, employees will gain back the power to influence better conditions. Time will tell.

Just received an email about pizza day next week. I'll be in the office on that day.

@ood+1puZ1zW9 just graduated out of college. This kid can’t work from home. Kid needs senior mentors 😀

@ood+1puZ1zW9

We were all the "work from home crowd" during the Pandemic and during that time it was PROVEN beyond any reasonable doubt that you can be successful working from home. We had record breaking profits and we did it from home
Maybe you are someone that is not self motivated and you need someone looking over your shoulder buy the majority of us do not

So the AI/Robots thing is nothing new. The hype was bought in this last round - making a few techies ultra-rich while providing only a fraction of the benefits people thought. Actually, none of the AI spokespeople suggested we'd be replacing jobs, those claims came from the overly hyped crowd of buyers.

AI is nowhere close to independently producing results that a human cannot outdo. It's still merely suggestive, just as its always been. Combining multiple tools into one doesn't make a new tool.

@ood+1

Hush now and go away. When I need a demeaning comment, I will tell you.

Regards,
Boomer

I agree with the AI comment. I am glad I am at my 20 year point and not 1 or 2. I would not pick banking as a career at this point.

A lot of you, ~75%, are going to be replaced by robots and AI.

Enjoy your jobs while you still have them because the way of the future is not like the past ways of human employees. The “Employee” is now an antiquated version of a worker. Many of you will wish technology never got as good as it is….

@ @ood+1puZ1zW9 TIMES HAVE CHANGED.. Where have you been?

What is the bank going to do when the job market reverses back to the employee? Go back and offer 3 days again?

Nobody I work with is in the same location as me. Much easier to be on the phone and Webex from the home office than the "Agile" seating layout at the office.