#rto

If you live super close to an office then just go badge in and go back home lol... But if you have damn near an hour commute? Find a medical issue you MIGHT have and have your manager submit a medical leave to HR for you.

I genuinely did have back issues - sciatica - and it was bad. I told my manager and got a 6m medical excuse to not go into office. No proof of this issue. No documentation or dorcotrs notes or whatever. I just explained it to him via email and bo-m.

BUT, you have to ask for it and make the time period reasonable. I asked for 4-6 months but was approved for 6 months. Anything over 12 months will require more.

maybe you broke your leg or maybe you need to tend to an elder, or maybe you had ACL surgery and can't walk... or maybe xyz.... No proof is needed for any of this as long as your ask is for under 12 months.

Medical "leave" in this instance simply means you are unable to drive to the office. it does NOT mean you can't work :)

Not saying to do this but, i'm also not saying you shouldn't.

Yes, I already posted this but I went off on a rant and forgbot to write about WHY I think this will happen lol...

My own opinion is that the 5 days/week RTO cr-p was implemented because the VP of Sales decided it was a "good idea" to do last August. Thanks buddy. Dell then decided to follow suit for a few reasons.

If they are only monitoriting badge swipes - which is literally ALL they are doing - but go on to say they don't require anybody to be IN office for any set amount of time... Then why even bother?

I'm sure they are well aware a lot of people just swipe and go home without even going into the building - I sure af do lol - but, the execs are going to get tired of monitoring somethign so trivial. At the end of the day, if everything is going smoothinly financially, business wise, and whatever else... it doesn't matter if people are going in 5x or 1x per week.

If the directors/sr. directors/execs are happy then that's all that matters. Badge swipes doesn't = better performance or more money. It does equal unhappy employees being forced to drive into an office and still go on Teams meetings because their entire damn team is spread across the country, or world.

My opinion and guess is that this was done in hopes to force people to quit. Nothing more and nothing less. Now they are laying off again (as usual...) which to me means, not enough people actually quit and they have no choice. Not that they weren't going to anyways but, they are 100% trying to force people to quit versus having to lay off. Those who quit aren't eligible for a severance or unemployment benefits so... It's cheaper for Dell to implement these things and not have to pay out.

I'm betting money, especially after the horendous Tell Dell results lol! that they will scale it back to 3 days/week and not monitor jack sh-t. Mark my word, this whole thing will be a thing of the past by January at the latest.

My own opinion is that the 5 days/week RTO cr-p was implemented because the VP of Sales decided it was a "good idea" to do last August. Thanks buddy. Dell then decided to follow suit for a few reasons.

A) They are paying a lot of rent, elec bills, etc... for buildings to be empty - so they want to feel as if they aren't just wasting money on empty buildings.

B) Dell wants to be under 80k employees at some point so, what better way to get people to quit than enforce this RTO policy? Along with no promotions if you aren't going into office and are full remote... They basically said FU-K YOU to anybody who isn't near an office. "Have fun never being promoted!" But, we aren't going to help you relocate either!

C) JC and MD are sheep. Lets be real though, MD isn't doing sh-t at Dell. He's the face and voice of Dell but ultimately, he's not REALLY calling the shots. Either way, they just do what everybody else is "doing" with no care in the world about the employees. Whatever makes them the most money is all they care about.

D) It's what "all the other companies are doing." - It'd be one thing if they required a 3 day in office week but 5? Dell has ALWAYS been 3 days in 2 days at home. Why 5 days all of a sudden? Where tf did that come from?

The devil isn’t in the details - this is about pushing us out. Plain and simple. The worse the RTO requirements get, the more people either burn out, get fed up, or just can’t comply and leave. That’s the point. It’s not poor RTO management by accident, it’s bad by design. Our frustration isn’t a side effect of incompetence. It’s the strategy.

Immediate elimination if you don’t show up. Brace for impact. Several EMG will be fired.

If leaders knew how to lead effectively, RTO would not be necessary. People will work for leaders they respect. They will go above and beyond. They will put in the extra hours because they feel valued. If you need to babysit them, it says a lot about you as a leader.

If you listened to the corporate update you’ll agree. Rick made it close he’s looking at 2026 or 2027 to put all employees back in a prison camp by the .

How is this even fair? Why does HR get to work from home while the rest of us have to schlep into the office everyday? This is total BS.

Anyone that still thinks that this was for collaboration and not a silent layoff is in lalaland

Farley explanation was absolutely id--tic. He had to reach out to other CEOs to get a feel for RTO. Then he follows that dousy of an answer with an absurd answer related to company culture.

These executives are way out of touch with reality, and then they wonder why employee morale is at all time lows.

Yo Farley next time listen to your employees the ones you employ… you know the employees that do the job of making your company successful.

Has optum been required to RTO?

https://www.restaurantdive.com/news/starbucks-four-day-a-week-rto-rule-seattle-toronto/753000/

Starbucks adopting industry standards.

Has Verizon notified the union of the end of wfh? Or are supervisors going to report to empty offices while their direct reports wfh?

Stop spending money at the cafeteria, stop interacting, quit community engagement activities, and literally anything else outside of your specific role, all 0’s on Glint surveys. The only ‘culture’ is a shared hatred of this godforsaken company.
We’re spending enough money and energy on the RTO3 commute already. I don’t have extra to continuously add to this company that obviously doesn’t care about us.

And let’s be honest, that is the goal. The requirements will just keep getting more ridiculous until enough of us give up and leave on our own. Four days in the office will turn into five, 40 miles will become 50. It’s a cheap, convenient way to thin the ranks without having to say the quiet part out loud.

Wish AT&T would match this like we try to match everything else Verizon.

https://buildremote.co/return-to-office/verizon/

Based on what we've seen at other companies, or just using basic reasoning (something our leadership doesn't seem too familiar with), the best people are the first to leave. Why stick around when other doors are wide open for skilled, high-performing employees? Then again, maybe I’m wrong in assuming the C-suite actually cares about keeping talent onboard.

Was that the plan?

When a telecommunications company says they can’t manage working from home I guess stockholders wonder, what can they do?

Come back to the office it’s totally safe they say! Meanwhile some crazy person walked right into an office building and started shooting people on the 33rd floor today in NYC!!!

When will we change our RTO policy back to 3 days in office / 2 days at home? Also it looks like our stock is soaring so we need to give EH his flowers. He has done a fabulous job putting Nike back on the map. Its only time until this site will just be positivity. Hopefully no more reorgs or layoffs moving forward.

But he expects the employees to trust the leadership if/when they deliver the results of the employee survey. I know . . . They Don't Care!

Hey all - open question herewith, not a complaint.
I've been at Intel for a while, love my team, and I'm trying to be objective about this. The new 4-day-a-week office policy is what it is. It’s the chatter about stricter presence monitoring - badge tracking, logins, VPN activity - that has me wondering. I'm not trying to game the system, just trying to understand: where’s the line between reasonable oversight and micromanagement that ki-ls morale?

I’m not looking to leave, so I'd rather learn from those who've gone through a similar shift or heard from your friends in other big tech companies. What felt reasonable, and what became unbearable? Was there a transparent conversation about what data was collected and why? Did these policies actually help collaboration, or just add a layer of stress?
I'm not anti office; I just believe work should be measured by results and trust, not by clock watching. Any practical tips for talking to a manager or HR about this? Or examples of balanced policies you've seen elsewhere?
Thanks for any honest input.

Maybe it’ll hit when the expectations become impossible to meet, by design. Or when it becomes too painfully obvious that efficiency, productivity, and real collaboration have all declined, and no amount of corporate fluff can cover it up. At this point, it feels pointless to complain about the rising costs, the exhausting commutes, or the arbitrary rules. They don’t want you to adapt. They want you gone.

Is this confirmed?

Starts end of Q1 2026. 4 days in office. WFH day is your choice. Exceptions will be gone unless you live >50 miles from an office.

OP: @gk+1k0yj1e9x

LBT is building a system where manager will get report for employee to be minimum 32 hours at office .
Ideas discussed at ET+ HR :

1. Add entry exit badge
2. Add computer login based tracking ( remote employee)
3. If < 32 hours . Exception generated and manager need to override in system
4. Convert all blue badge employees to non-exempt to legally track it time sheet
5. Grade 10+ will be excluded from teaching specially VPs

If working at the office is more efficient, Why not have a 5 day RTO to strive to be 100% efficient?

Not sure about claims of RTO4 or loss of sabbatical but can’t explain $100 a share without the Street thinking we will cut costs hard

Because they don’t care about productivity, efficiency, collaboration, or the actual results of RTO. What they care about is pushing people to quit. Every RTO rollout, in every company, has always been about attrition first. RTO has been around long enough to know it doesn’t improve anything. If anything, it makes things worse. Except when it comes to driving people out. That part works perfectly.

So far, the only difference RTO has made in my life is more hours wasted commuting and higher expenses. I still haven’t met a single person I actually work with. Doubt I ever will. Any time I “gain” by not working late nights, I now spend stuck in traffic. I’d have more respect if they just admitted the real reasons. Because let’s be clear - this isn’t about collaboration and efficiency.

Didn't take long to figure out RTO was a losing mandate.

https://thehill.com/opinion/campaign/5412153-remote-work-reversals-state-government/amp/

I estimate that commuting three times a week is costing me approximately an extra $50 weekly, or $200 monthly. To make up for my increased expenses, I'm thinking about cutting back on some/all of the following:

• Christmas gifts for the family
• Contributions to my 401(k)
• Donations to the Elevance Health PAC
• Tithes to my church

What have others considered cutting back on?

I work at a PulsePoint location that lacks sufficient facilities, particularly meeting rooms. All Staff VPs have their own private offices with doors, yet the few small meeting rooms (designed for 1–2 people) are reserved exclusively for them. With the return-to-office policy now requiring three in-office days, there’s a clear shortage of spaces for quick meetings or 1:1s. It’s unclear why these additional rooms are restricted to Staff VPs when they already have dedicated offices—it just doesn’t add up. They don’t even need them but others are not allowed to reserve them!

Remote worker, just laid off, supposedly so they can use my headcount on someone in-office.

My manager is now spending several work hours each week driving to and from an office where none of their direct reports or other immediate team members are located. What a significant impact on people leaders’ ability to be available to and collaborate with those who need their time and support most! I hope leadership takes this loss of meaningful (and the most essential) collaboration into consideration as they contemplate the impact of this unnecessary requirement on people leaders, who in many cases are already burdened with far too many direct reports to be maximally effective. Now they have even less time to be available to those who depend on them the most.

New leadership believes developers are not able to complete deadlines at home. Prepare for a sweeping RTO mandate.

You don’t build culture with mandates and badge scans. We believed in connection and trust, and now it’s all about control. Starbucks used to feel different. Now it feels like we’re just being managed for show. You can’t force community. You have to earn it.

Every other reason is secondary, if there were ever any valid reasons to begin with. Commuting is manageable in some cases, unless we’re talking hours to and from the office. Relocation isn’t a real option. It’s extremely expensive, it disrupts the entire family, and you’re still at high risk of being laid off just months later. God knows how many more cuts are around the corner, or how this whole upheaval will play out.

Anyone hearing anything about the RTO changes coming? Supposedly soon…

Been at Medtronic 10 yrs and hired as a remote worker. Will they make me start going into the office ? I’ve never went in.

It’s been 8 months now for my group being in the office 5x per week. I’m curious what the metrics look like on what the improvements. have been. Has it been effective? Is the company more efficient? Other than more people than normal retiring or leaving the business, has it made anything better? I’m still not seeing these big collaboration meetings. Nobody meets in person.

We are now ranked #3. Previously we were #1. Verizon’s revenue exceeds ours and T mobile is catching up. Both companies are still fully remote btw.