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 The five-day RTO policy actively reduces productivity, and many internal systems remain outdated and inefficient.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 manifesto 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.