Thread regarding Bank of America layoffs

@202+1kzrtapt0

Hearing most say they will do 5-7 in and beat rush hour. Probably will change if they build a tracking mechanism like Wells has.

So what are people hearing from colleagues and others you know at the company? Do they plan to put in the full 8 hours?

Bottom line:
Official party line = "Everyone wants to be in-office so we are requiring everyone to be in office."

1. "We want in-office environment to be so miserable that people won't want to be here. We need them to want to leave so we don't have to lay off or pay severance."
2. "Have teams spread across multiple sites so everyone must use MS Teams to collaborate. Implement open-office and remove all cubicle walls so everyone on different calls for functions unrelated to their location has to hear background noise from all the other calls and thus increases daily frustration. "
3. "If anyone now claims they don't want to be in-office, develop policies to punish the outliers and claim they are not team players."
4. "Define outliers as anyone outside the 10% su-kups who claim they want to be in-office."
5. Watch the best people leave, replace them with minimally functional seat-fillers at much less pay and claim 'responsible growth.'
6. Hold earnings call touting record earnings.
7. Claim reinvestment into systems and no money left for compensation other than to cover raising minimum wage to reward the most inexperienced new hires.

Did I miss anything on how RTO impacts top-level strategy?

If you are salaried the law is pretty clear - they can't mandate a certain number of hours. Otherwise they wouldn't be able to get you to work more than 40 and get away with it.

@hp yes. I saw the calendar last Thursday. A guy next to me follows it.

@qq If you worked on Sat or Sun, be sure to book a comp day.

@jn 5 days a week wasn't the norm before Covid. Management was flexible so long as you got your work done. Fast forward to the post covid economic bubble that we are waiting to see if it pops. In this economy you can hardly sell your house unless you are willing to go below market value. What does BOA have a lot of? Real-estate, big empty offices that are impossible to dump.

A scarry thought that crossed my mind recently, aside from banking and a mini financial zone, what else exists in Charlotte that would encourage workers of any age group to settle here? If local corporations fail to resonate with their employees two things happen. First, the disillusioned and younger people move away. Second item, as enough employees get packages or are lucky enough to retire, they too are gone. The population that remains doesn't care about working in a bank with a bad reputation. Finally the largest corporations are moving to bank friendly states like Delaware, North Dakota, etc

@qm+1kzrtapt0

Be sure to block out a full hour for lunch then. No exceptions. A full day eating at desk is 8am-4pm. 8am-5pm is taking 1 hour away for lunch.

@OP Our manager just came out today and stated that 8-5 means that, PERIOD. He sent an email asking that everyone on the team reply back to him that they understood the rules and would comply. What an A$$.

@ke are you fr?? You have to be a millennial or boomer. Who’s looking to see who’s badging in and out? Who cares? If HR and the managers here had any competence they would find the non productive or poor performing employees and axe them. (There are many!!!) Problem is most HR and managers are id--ts and only got to where they are because of a*s kissing. It’s pointless to have this RTO policy , if people find ways to work around it - good for them!

@ke 100% agree. Now we are stuck.....

Why didn't the C Suite Clowns go after the blatant abusers instead of making everyone's life miserable? You all have seen them. The ones who drive up to the campus front door, jump out, badge in, run right back to their car and drive off?

Being very strict is likely a result of cutting staff numbers to the point where there is no backup.

Unfortunately bofa has just turned into a terrible place to work . They do not care if you’re laid up in the emergency room on life support. Sick time no longer covers emergencies . So even if your kid is sick ash nothing matters unless your in the office. And the waited right until school starts for the kids to announce this. Yikes

My cynical self says this is all intentionally complex so that SLT can say “this isn’t working well” and bring everyone back 5 days.

@hw I don’t know about going forward starting Sep 14, but in the past the WPE dashboard would show you as compliant if you had 3 or more vacation days in a week and didn’t go in to the office the other two days.

Our group follows market hours so our new expectation for time in office is 8-4 or 8:30-4:30. Also up until October 2022 our team was 2 days in 3 remote, then in that October we had to switch to 3 in 2 remote. For all these years since, we had the policy that we could not work remote both Monday or Friday, we could do one or the other. Also vacation/ sick counted towards the remote days so if you took 2 vacation days in a week you needed to come in the other 3. Another example is if you took 4 vacation/ sick days in a week you needed to come in that one day, unless of course that day was a holiday. It’s interesting to hear in this forum that our group’s policy was not universal but like I said we’ve been following it for years so now it seems it’s codified across the enterprise

@ae when taking vacation, if you take 3 days or more days, entered in workday, are you covered for that week (with stars like before), or do we need to come in the other days you arent on vacation?

@ae is the 4 out of 6 in effect still?

@am Remember when some people had to pick on the geeks or needs in high school? Become friendly with your IT staff in the office and pray that you didn't go to any school with them. They now have the answers you seek.

@ft It's been 23 years since I had a team member with me in the office.

It’s such a silly policy. I don’t have a single team mate in my office so I’m going there to sit on a seat to listen to everyone else’s meetings on teams. They timed all of this when the job market is poor so that folks who want to leave will struggle to find anything. It’s one thing if they mandated coming to the office but baby sitting us like toddlers saying it doesn’t count unless you’re there for the full 8 hours is ridiculous. Maybe I can volunteer to be my managers snitch in my office so I won’t report on myself!

@f4 Just overheard some people in the break room. Doesn’t make sense, but neither does most of this WPE cr-p.

@f3 read what the manager says below, managers are expected to police their employees at their sites or recruit/ deploy snitches at other locations to keep check of their slaves. Pretty simple to follow.

@f2 you trolling? 4 pto and come the 1? To meet what threshold?

If they are anything like Wells, they are tracking hours by badge swipe and WiFi connectivity. The tracking starts with your first badge swipe in and ends with your last WiFi connectivity or last badge swipe out. In the beginning they told everyone a full day and did not state a specific number of hours but once they actually started producing the report people got in trouble for coming in less than 8 hours. They are now starting to track computer activity. Quantity over quality is their motto. Welcome to the fun!

I’ve heard that vacation/sick/holidays won’t count as an office day. I overheard that even 3 PTO days won’t count. For example: 3 PTO days & you are still expected to come in the other two days. Even 4 PTO days & you are still expected to come in the 1 day.

@ec Wouldn’t the half sick day or half vacation day cover you for the whole day? No reason to take both, right?

@bm+1kzrtapt0

For doctors visits - use 4 hours of sick time and take a 1/2 day off. That is what the benefit is there for. Surprised how many people don't use it.

Took the manager training as well, and here is the summary:

• these new requirements effective Sept 14 overlay the current RTO policies - we still have the 3 out of 5 days in office requirement (if it applied before) and weekly compliance is still 4 out of 6 weeks.
• The monthly management compliance dashboard will be updated to include compliance to the 'no 2 consecutive WFH days' - they have programmed something for the Sept 14 start.
• For the 'you must work a full day in the office' there was no firm guidance on the # of hours or how they will monitor besides 'a) managers must monitor those who work in the same office, b) manager to monitor via video when feasible for their employees in other offices and c) escalations from other managers or co-workers for violations from other offices.

Other notes

• Acceptable reasons for being out of compliance - unexpected problems, e.g. with the house or illness. Expected things (deliveries etc) are not acceptable reasons. They did not address if you have a drs appt, whether or not that counts against your 'you must be in a full day' - but you must return to the office afterwards so I am guessing that it does not count, which has been the norm, as long as it is not abused. That is just my guess though, better to discuss with your manager up front.
• By my analysis, there are 5 acceptable permutations for the no 2 consecutive WFH days (we are not allowed M/F):
  1) M/W, M/TH
  2) T/Th, T,F
  3) W/F
  • The US received emails stating 'for US managers' but I understand this policy was rolled out globally.

Hope this helps. An overcomplicated plan for sure, and it sets us up for an even greater 'tattletale' non-trust culture, but there it is.

@at I took the training today as it's been published in the transcript. I recall it saying that Dr. appointments could be attended to but have to return back and to work with manager to make them aware.

@az Managers are subject to disciplinary action if they do not enforce the WPE policy.

Yeah, I think the 3 big questions everyone wants answered are:

1. How many hours do you need to be in the office to be compliant (I’ve heard 6 but is this true?)
2. Are hours being monitored and if so how
3. Is the 4 out 6 weeks thing still alive

@av haven't heard squat on the 4/6 rule going away, at least not yet. would be nice if managers had some leeway in determiming what makes a full day in the office.

So far I’ve only heard come 8 hours a day. There’s literally no transparency. I heard conflicting things on the 4/6 policy. It’ll be best to abide the first few weeks and wait for people to provide feedback because we really don’t know

@ae How many hours do we have to be in the office? Is 4/6 going away?

What if I have to leave early for a doctor's appointment? I do plan to work M/T/T, but what if I am out one T or T and have to come on Friday? Am I out of compliance?

@OP

"When we tried to ask clarifying questions, my skip-level shut it down, saying that asking questions suggests you’re trying to get around the policy rather than follow it."

This is so despicable, yet also entirely on-brand for BofA management.

@ae+1kzrtapt0 do you know how exactly they are monitoring how long you are in the office each day? And can we be noncompliant for a week every 6 weeks without it being flagged like before, or is there no exceptions?

I’m a manager. And was fully transparent with my team about it all. Ask away.