#rto

4 days and 6-6 schedules didn’t push as many out

At what point do we employees just stop playing along with this ridiculous RTO policy?

Seriously, what happens if we collectively decide that enough is enough and stop treating 5x RTO like it’s some sacred commandment?

They can’t fire everybody. And if they tried, they’d have an even bigger problem on their hands - like a massive talent and productivity disaster worse than we are already seeing.

The irony of this whole thing is “leadership” has created a policy so unpopular that the only thing keeping it functioning may be the assumption that everyone has to comply individually.

Maybe it’s time to start asking what happens when employees realize they have leverage too.

Five-day RTO isn’t inevitable. It’s a BS policy no others in the industry follow. A policy we didn’t even follow ourselves for decades before Covid, and policies can be changed. Maybe that’s what it takes.

The vast majority of people who remain here are just waiting for MR75 or to see what happens with leadership.

There are a lot of employees hoping that when Stankey is gone and a new CEO comes in, one of the first things they do is take a hard look at this completely overextended RTO policy.

Because if the new leadership comes in and decides to keep five-day RTO, I don’t think we’ve seen anything yet.

There are a lot of people who are tolerating this right now because they’re hoping the policy changes. Take that hope away, and you’re going to see a lot of people make their exit at the same time.

And that’s when we’ll find out just how much talent this policy has actually pushed toward the door.

AT&T can change course or keep doubling down. But I genuinely believe the consequences of this decision will become impossible to ignore by 2028.

This company may sink or swim based on what happens with RTO. You ain’t seen nothing yet!

Newer to the company have there been any talks of RTO?

It is mid week now. Where is the post on virtuals getting notices to relocate to Dallas? It seems every week this insider has so much information about virtuals and the schedule for the follow the work letters.

Have the notices stopped going out to virtuals? Or are all virtuals gone? Or has the guy perpetuating this claim left the business?

I truly want to thank the leadership team for finally ending the nightmare of a productive, comfortable home environment. I’ve desperately missed the thrill of the morning commute and the illusion of "cross-team collaboration." Since my ultimate goal is to never leave the building, please let me know if I can volunteer my weekends to help the janitorial staff empty the recycling bins. I’d hate to miss out on even a single second of this vibrant workplace culture

Seems like employees received an email where they can no longer work 2 consecutive days WFH and need to be in the office for a 'full day'.... will TIAA be next? Anyone here have any insights or heard anything?

Whom do I have to email to get an RTO extension for another 6 months? My manager and AVP said it’s not possible. Did anyone have any luck getting it extended? I really need it due to personal issues and other things that I can’t put a name to.

When researchers examined return-to-office mandates across S&P 500 companies, they found no significant improvement in financial performance or firm value, but a clear fall in employee satisfaction — making the policy’s measurable human cost easier to find than its promised economic benefit

https://siliconcanals.com/t-return-office-mandates-firm-performance-employee-satisfaction/

Will all the dinosaurs will go extinct after RTO ? or they will flourish ?

I’m forced to relocate to Dallas this year. I have kids in elementary school. What is your routine like if you live in Frisco? I am sole earner and can’t lose this job.

Since RTO has now been in effect for over six months, it feels like that has been long enough for a second round of hand slaps for people who are not adhering like what happened earlier in spring. Have any managers had employees flagged for not coming in enough? Just curious what the current tolerance level is.

(And, just to put it out there, if anyone is ready to pipe up that I, or others, don’t want to work, like the majority of forks opposed to RTO, I am much more productive at home and we’ll never see the value of commuting to sit on zoom calls all day with 95% of my colleagues who are still remote. So please just save your feeble little fingers the effort of typing out a response and scroll on by. K, thx!)

I’m a former TDP. I’m exactly the kind of employee this company should be doing everything it can to keep.

I like the work. I like my team. I like my role. If it weren’t for RTO, I’d probably be here for a long time.

Instead, everyday I spend more and more time wondering if it’s time to leave. Not because of the work, but because of what the pisspoor leadership has turned this place into.

The morale is the worst I’ve ever seen. It feels like an “us vs. them” culture now. People aren’t motivated to go above and beyond anymore. They’re burned out, frustrated, and just trying to get through the day. Everyone is doing the bare minimum, checking the box, and says “who cares?” when a problem or a challenge arises. Nobody here feels valued anymore.

I’m burned out from a long commute that adds no value. I now work fewer hours than I used to because the time I spent getting ahead is now spent sitting in traffic. I’m less productive, less motivated, and honestly just exhausted. I’m worried if I stay here much longer it will destroy my work ethic.

We tell customers they can connect from anywhere, yet internally we act like our own technology isn’t good enough for us to use ourselves. How does that make any sense to anyone?

What frustrates me most is that I want to stay. I enjoy the work. I have a great team. I don’t want to start over somewhere else even though I know I could. But every day this RTO policy makes that decision to leave a little easier.

If leadership is wondering why the younger employees aren’t staying, maybe stop asking why they’re leaving and start asking why you’re giving them reasons to. The job isn’t pushing us away. Leadership’s decisions, RTO policy, and resulting toxic culture and rock bottom morale are.

Software org got it first. Curious if other orgs are hearing the same thing. This is more restrictive than pre covid now.

Get special dispensation to work from Hawaii.

Don't get me wrong, if I could surf, pick pineapples, and eat breadfruit on my lunch break I'd be all over that sh-t.

But RTO either applies to everyone or it applies to no one.

• Show up at the office at 8am
• 8 hours of Teams calls with people in a different state/office or working from home
• 30 minute lunch break
• Leave at 4PM and drive two hours home
• Question the point of it all

It doesn’t get better than this!

Virtuals run this company and create the rules. All others get yourself to Dallas HQ.

Any new RTO info in the last hour? :)

Someone is abusing the original goal of this site by constantly discussing RTO and tracking data.

If you got a job and worried about RTO, then maybe LinkedIn and Reddit is where you should be. To keep discussing RTO here is ridiculous while people worried about overall job security.

I had to get some papers and my sunglasses from my desk at 388 NYC today. Tapped in just after dawn, left and was home by 9am, that counts as a office day. I moved my mouse every 5-7mts or so from home and did virtually nothing today. I'll take off Thursday/Friday so that's my 'office' for the week and my boss and MD know. No RIF for me because I'm like Lancôme, worth it! Be useless my friends....

This issue needs to be addressed before the new AT&T headquarters in Plano opens.

The Plano campus will have pickleball courts, which means employees may soon be competing against one another on a regular basis. However, virtual employees already have a major advantage: they do not have to spend up to two hours each day commuting to and from the Dallas headquarters.

While the rest of us are sitting in traffic, virtual employees could be using that time to practice their serves, improve their game, and prepare for the Plano courts. By the time the new headquarters opens, employees who have been commuting may be years behind in pickleball development.

This creates a serious fairness issue. The Plano pickleball courts should be a level playing field, but that will not be possible if one group has had significantly more time to practice simply because of where they work.

Leadership needs to act now, before the competitive gap becomes impossible to close. I am requesting that virtual employees return to the office so everyone has the same commuting obligations and the same opportunity to prepare.

We cannot wait until the first Plano pickleball tournament to realize that this problem should have been handled sooner. The integrity of AT&T pickleball is at stake and the time to act is now before it is too late.

The July total possible working days appear to be overstated. With Independence Day observed on 07/03/26, the total should be 22 working days; however, it is currently posted as 23. This discrepancy suggests that U.S. Bank may no longer be observing the country’s Independence Day.

What is HR’s current RTO status? Has there been anything official communicated?

Since this topic continues to come up, here are some points you may find helpful that have been shared in other threads.

Disclaimer: Yes, I am aware the goal posts have changed and are likely to change. This information is based on current expectations.

1. The adherence data is delayed every single month. Every. Single. Month. If it isn't corrected by week two of a given month, there is a process you can follow in MyHR to have it corrected.

2. The current metric is the average over each rolling three-month period. January, February, and March are no longer factoring into that. Neither is April. Right now, it's May, June, and July.

3. If you've averaged more than 60% per three-month period (Jan-Mar, Feb-Apr, Mar-May, Apr-Jun, May-Jul), you're fine.

4. If you continue to average more than 60% across Jun-Aug, Jul-Sep, Aug-Oct, Sep-Nov, Oct-Dec, and so on, you will continue to be fine.

5. If your May-Jul average (or any three-month period in the future) is less than 60%, yes, you will have to work additional days in office to raise that average.

6. You can calculate in advance how many days you need to be in office each month, based on your Adjusted Working Days (Total Possible Days minus Vacation/Holiday/Sick days) to maintain the more-than-60% average across each rolling three-month period.

7. Yes, I am aware we should not have to do that.

8. The "Working in the office: In-office attendance and reporting (Global)" article FAQs in MyHR address the change that took place in April.

"Q. Am I held to the 'more than 60% in-office' expectation for Q1 2026 if the updated measurement approach didn't take effect until Q2 2026?

A. Yes, as the expectation of working three-plus days in the office was established and communicated over 12 months ago."

Reason being that three-plus Total Possible Working days in office each week in January, February, and March (not Adjusted Possible Working Days) averages at more than 60% and would have been achieved by employees following the expectation for Q1, which, again, is no longer factoring into the three-month average.

1. This isn't opinion or preference or bootlicking, just math.

Just received my notice to return into the office.

I’ve been cautious and coming in 3 days a week ever since the dashboard tracking was implemented. I have observed others are not here 3 days a week.

How? I can’t imagine this many folks have flexible work agreements?

How many people are above 60%?

Although my time was short with Discover/Crapital One, I have come to believe that it was a blessing in disguise! Not living day to day in a toxic environment where management lies and you wait for the hatchet any minute and knowing you are a hardworking, valuable employee, is a blessing. I hope the best for the good folks they "Crapped" on this week. Regarding the severance - take the money and run! They have surely already crafted your job posting for LinkedIn, and possibly interviewed your much younger, less costly, on-site, replacement! Crapital One is just that - One Cr-ppy Company that does not care about any employees...

Now has 3 month average and year to date average

I foresee a loosening of the restrictive FT RTO because of a few factors.

One being that the malcontents would’ve left.

Two they will have replaced them with newbies willing to crawl in everyday, but the drawback of the newbies is the brain drain they likely didn’t expect.

And with those factors involved the loosening of the strict adhere to 5/4 will be happening.

They might attain employees wiling to slog in but that does not equate quality or skill or professionalism.

There also might be a tremendous amount of negative blow back on the CFO too since he seemingly is the mastermind behind this tactic.

Defying years of relaxed and welcomed 1-2 days a week of wfh encouraged because a happy worker produces more and better quality.

Must restore the balance. ☯️

Behind all of this?
Seems since he took his recent post that’s when our RTO accelerated.
He’s making a name for himself to take the Abby slot
Never good when family owned CEO leaves any company.
There goes the legacy and the loyalty.
This guy to me is the reason behind all this upheaval.
Company’s with bean counters at the helm don’t bite employees as integral and valuable.
They are deficits.
Just one gals opinion. But I have seen this before in other companies way too often.

AT&T used to compete for the best talent in the country. Today, it feels like we’re competing for the best talent willing to relocate to a handful of hub cities and accept five-day RTO.

The people walking out the door aren’t just headcount. They’re decades of institutional knowledge, technical expertise, customer relationships, and experience that can’t be replaced by posting another job opening.

“Leadership” seems to think talent is interchangeable. But we know it isn’t.

You can backfill a position in a few months. It can take years for someone to become truly effective in many of these roles, and by then they may already be looking for their next opportunity.

A real market-based culture works both ways. If you expect employees to compete in the market every day, then the company has to compete for employees too. That means offering a compelling reason to stay, whether that’s compensation, flexibility, culture, career growth, or meaningful work.

Right now, it feels like the strategy is to shrink the talent pool through geography, push experienced people out, and hope everything works out.

Hope isn’t a strategy and neither is assuming talent is infinitely replaceable.

We have a release every other Saturday and it takes most of the day in validating etc. they dont pay us extra and it is said its part of your job. Why should we support this since that would mean extra hours put in every other weekend with no compensation.

Another item for your reading pleasure. Doubtful that Stinkey has read this one.

https://enhancv.com/blog/rto-stealth-layoffs/?utm_source=chatgpt.com

Ya don't say!!! For your reading pleasure. Wonder if Stinkey has read this.

https://thehill.com/opinion/technology/5992056-office-attendance-backlash/

Anyone have any insight into if Product will be required for RTO? Me and a few team members are remote and I’m wondering if I should be worried.

One of my friends in merch told me there is a team who is being required to be there from 8 to 5 on RTO days. That was never a requirement before the pandemic and I’m wondering if that true for all of merch. I anticipate everyone will be on 3-4 days RTO soon, but I think specific mandated hours are insane. Schedules shift day to day for families. Is this true? Do I need to look for a new company?

Haha. I knew it was coming.

They just said anticipate 5 days a week in the home office connect when someone asked if they are gonna go back to two days at home. They said “nope. Actually we anticipate five days a week…”

TOLD YA SOOOOOOOO.

HBAs are gonna be gone next, regular and medical.

BET!

Why does nobody address the condition of the offices and the health hazards they may impose. Conditions are extremely unsanitary, and I believe as an organization we can do better…how do we gain some momentum in this regard as going into the office is required, but there is no care around, cleaning areas, and air quality is very questionable. Where do we start so we can improve?

I spend at least 8 hours in the office on my in person days. Is that necessary?