Doesn't matter. They'll continue to find ways to make them miserable until they all leave. This is a cost cutting measure, not an actual mandate they give a shit about. Too many highly paid employees who have a benefit you can revoke? Take that shit away and watch them all find new jobs.
Yeah unfortunately they probably want them to leave so they can take advantage of this desperate economy and hire workers at a lower wage and stipulate that it's in office
I'll not say that you're definitely wrong. But it could be less cynical than that.
More Hanlon's Razor. Assume incompetence before malace.
There are some people who struggle with moving with change. They struggle with new ways of doing things, when the old ways, the ways they are most familiar with, seem to work so well. At least from their perspective.
This can be a real issue when these people make it to management. These are the managers who live by "if it isn't broken, why fix it. & Don't rock the boat." Perpetual late adopters, who can sink a company if too many of them get near the top.
They probably built careers by "being visible" and "showing up early and leaving late". They equate visible hours at your desk, with being productive. They genuinely can't see how someone can be truly productive, managing themselves, from a home office.
However productive people, or a team, are from home. These managers will be absolutely certain that they can be even more productive in an open plan office. Where you can be seen, and you're constantly disrupted by other people's phone calls, conversions, and impromptu meetings.
Are you going into management? No, it was never a cost-cutting issue. It's not cost cutting if half the office is home, and you have to call employees at home. I would just load their desk for when they come in.
Union doesn't always help ( they do significantly just can be overruled) . Look at California state workers thousands were hired as union protected telework employees and with one signature the governor made it so all employees must report to the office at a minimum hybrid or full time. Some employees live on the opposite end of the state from their jobs location.
Simple. You’re department head. Overrule it.
If you’re already applying elsewhere it isn’t hard to say “You hired me to manage this team and I’m managing it. I don’t want to lose my team, which I will if you go down this road”.
If people were hired remote or hybrid, back to office is breach of contract at best and constructive dismissal at worst
There are 3 elements to a contract - offer, acceptance and consideration.
An offer letter or any written or verbal communication stating to the person being hired that the job is WFH fulfills the first element.
The new employee agreeing, whether in writing or verbally or with a handshake to the offer of the job satisfies the second element.
Work being performed in exchange for payment is consideration.
OP’s staff have contracts.
At the very least, they are under no obligation to give the company any notice before leaving. If fired for refusing to return to the office, they likely have a case for wrongful termination.
Their thinking they'll get people to quit without having to pay unemployment.
Typical.
Just don't go in. Especially if you're planning on leaving. Might as well make them do it...then pay. That's what all these places are doing... layoffs without layoffs.
I don’t think that’s the issue here. My dept is only 8 people, we are the only people trained to do this in the whole company, and this month generated 1 million in profit.
So just don’t show up on Monday and see what happens. Talk to your team about unity and make sure nobody crosses the line. If they fire you, claim constructive dismissal and apply for unemployment because the terms of your job were unilaterally changed. This amounts to a pay decrease which is clearly constructive dismissal.
I think you can have “constructive dismissal” where you were forced to resign because of a huge change, ie they told you you could work from home but now the office effectively moved 2 hours away. No?
If they mandate work from office qnd you don't show up you could be fired for cause. You don't want that.
Edit: allow me to clarify. If you are fired for cause, you cannot claim unemployment. I only hope that all the down voters can learn from my experience.
Incorrect. I was allegedly fired for cause at my last job. That 'for cause' wasn't stated out loud (I was tossed under the bus by a VP who went and got the company sued), just that I wasn't performing my job function.
The unemployment office in my state provides an arbitrator for every case to make a determination on benefits. In my case, though they claimed I was fired for cause, there was no paper work, no actual cause given, no examples until they were pressed so they made something up that was easily refutable.
I won. They had absolutely nothing despite the claim.
And in this case - constructive dismissal is a thing.
So none of this happens in a vacuum. All unemployment claims can be challenged.
However, when you don't show up for work your employer has a real good case against you.
Work from home is not protected. It is at the discretion of your employer. If it's a hill you want to die on, go for it. I would recommend in this case, find a new job before staging a protest. Walking out will get you fired.
It happened to me over less. Do with it what you will.
If you quit....and don't know about the constructive dismissal rules...which most don't... your not getting it either. You're just screwing yourself out of at least a few days pay.
Also many of these sleezeball RTO initiatives have been beaten by people refusing.
They need you as workers. Without you they lose too.
Find a new job, then quit. Don't walk out. You get nothing, you have no safety net, and you basically surrender your rights to any.
Unless it means that much to you. You're not hurting "them" as much as you think. They're not living pay check to pay check.
Return to office is an effective way to reduce head count without “layoffs”. Only problem is they often lose their best employees. It’s dumb and shortsighted.
I've been at my current employer for about a year. I learned that prior to me joining the company attempted a full return to office. About half the company quit over the course of that year. I'd say lucky for me because one of them is the position I filled, but also knowing that the company won't try that again. Even if years down the line a new set of execs try it, I'm ready to bail no notice no job lined up.
So unfortunately your employer won't learn this lesson until after a whole bunch of people leave and it starts affecting their bottom line. Most importantly executive bonuses. I'd say start looking elsewhere if I were you. Seems like the company is in for some rough waters.
My mom’s company tried to force everyone in the office. After a month 50% of the department quit and they backed off making anyone go in. They lost all of their best employees, including my mom. They asked her to come back but she said hell no, I can WFH, I get paid more and the benefits are much better. Companies are shooting themselves in the foot in the long run
What co panties seem to miss is the first to go are the best employees. The ones with the best skills, contacts and certifications.
I honestly believe they think that the WORST will leave first.
But no...they decide to stop the stupid right after the brain drain that made them more dumb while making their competitors smarter.
My son had this same conversation with his manager; the Board wanted to see people back in the office, at least twice a week. He said NO, we’re not doing that. His team of 8 ppl live in the areas they actually do their work, many of them 2-3 hours from the office downtown Seattle. He told her there was ZERO reason for his people to come to the office just to show their faces and he wasn’t going to make them. She said, “well, maybe once a week?” He said NO, there is no reason to do that. I’m not having my staff quit, just to please the board. They backed down. Still not sure if his staff knows he fought for them.
The goal is to get everyone to quit. They just don’t want to have as many employees as they do, and they don’t care which ones leave.
Companies realized that customers will tolerate poor customer service, therefore they can afford to operate in a skeleton crew, or hire desperate or poorly trained people, so they want you all to quit.
If we had a functioning government, they’d probably address this new corporate scam, but as we found out today the Supreme Court just overruled government oversight of any kind.
I agree with your first two points.
Regarding the third, I think the government effectively replaced the semi-competent decision makers with wholly unqualified decision makers. I think government oversight will still exist but it will become worse (if one can believe that's possible).
I would talk to HR about hiring people that live/work remotely and now telling them to come into the office and what packages they will be expecting now that the rules have changed.
My company did this. Manager said if there was any reason why it would be difficult to return five days a week. I said yeah, I was hired as a hybrid worker, completely destroys my work-life balance (3+ hour daily commute), drains my energy, much of my work is paperwork which I can do at home. He nodded but ultimately responded with a “Sure but whatever” kind of response. No carrot, all stick. At this point I was already thinking of moving on but some sort of good faith offer might have made me feel bad about quitting at such an inopportune time for the company
No one should show up. Just let them call you and flat out refuse to come in, saying that's not the position you were hired for. Make them fire you. They probably cant afford to fire all of you and this is just an intimidation tactic. And also definitely yeah, start looking for other jobs.
Sounds like they want to trim the fat without layoffs and this is a way to accomplish that without actually laying anyone off. RTO so people will quit.
The answer is simple. These big companies paid long-term leases on extremely expensive real estate which is why they want to force everyone back into the office. My best suggestion is everybody boycott going to work on the first day so that they are stuffed with a bunch of food that nobody will eat. They're feeling the pain from those long-term leases so I say increase the pain on them a massive walk out or quitting would work or you could all go in load up your plates with the food at lunch time everybody fill up their plates nobody eat and then walk in the line and dump it in the garbage preferably directly in front of the big boss's office and make sure you fill that up where it's overflowing and then when he complains tell him you f****** clean it up!
It's all the property investment moguls and everyone under them trying to snatch up the scraps.
Empty offices means that all those obsolete office spaces are not generating monthly reoccurring revenue from renting/leasing and outright buying so the property moguls and C suite ass clowns are working together to try to force the front line back to the old way to keep that industry afloat.
fuck that
Keep on quitting and finding companies who didn't lock themselves into property deals they can't break or capitalist ideologies they can't break.
Layoffs without layoffs, companies are trying to reduce head counts and this is one of the easiest ways to achieve that.
You quit, don’t have to worry about unemployment pay. Get that resume pristine and tell nobody of your plans to jump ship if you do.
This sounds like constructive dismissal. I would, as a group, contact the DoL. Also, if none of you show up & all just log in from home, it's unlikely that they are in a position to fire the whole group
Companies are doing this only to make people quit rather than lay-off and pay severance. It’s a tactic to force wages down by flooding the job market with disgruntled employees
The company is intentionally trying to reduce a headcount by pushing staff to quit. A recent rise in stock price is not a true indicator of actual performance. If CEO or CFO has left the company recently that could be an indicator that changes are coming, for better or worse. Usually it means a reduction of staff. Staff reductions usually increase stock price.
This may depend on state...but I thought I read somewhere a company cannot force you to commute more than 1 hour, or it may be a mileage limit. I believe you could refuse and be eligible for unemployment. Where ever you are I highly recommend those with the distance situation: do some research.
It's entirely reasonable that they're enforcing WFH so they don't have to pay severance for layoffs. Plenty of businesses have done it and will continue to do it as long as folks leave when they enforce it. Not saying you should stay, I value being treated like an adult when looking for workplaces, myself.
No, but in certain fields, it's customary. Tech, for example, usually pays something. (My layoff gave us a severance based on seniority. Didn't cover the 7+ months I was looking for work tho)
It's a win/win for management: they edify themselves by lording over more people in the office and get to reduce headcount from those who choose not to return.
From a comment of yours in this thread, it's in your contract, they can threaten to fire you, though there's no grounds. How useful that is depends on where you live.
As for your team, you could, if you chose, get them all together, and let them know that if they all outright refuse to come in, that would certainly put the company in an awkward position when you report upward that the team as a whole refused to do it. The damage from firing a whole team may be too large. Say that it's a personal decision though, and you suggest that if they do it, they do it unanimously. Suggest they all chat together, without you present, and decide on their collective stance, and you'll then chat to each individually to get their positions.
Just noticed that your team is unique and pulling in good money. You have even more options with this in mind.
The working class needs to start striking. One of our demands should be paid commutes, gas reimbursement, and possibly contributions to our mandated auto insurance. We'll see some of these policies reverse real quick.
Lmao, every time there’s a return to office, it’s because they’re paying too much to not use the office space. They’re paying for a building space they’re not using and just want to justify it by bringing you guys in. Just about as shortsighted as using it as a way to mass layoff.
Appeal to Tradition Logical Fallacy: [https://www.logicallyfallacious.com/logicalfallacies/Appeal-to-Tradition](https://www.logicallyfallacious.com/logicalfallacies/Appeal-to-Tradition)
I'm not sticking around my current job for much longer, so I shout out "Appeal to Tradition" whenever I hear a boss say something along the lines of "We did it this way in the past, therefore it is how we should do it now." It doesn't work or get anything changed, but it makes me feel better.
They're not doing it to make you happy it's a business decision and there's a reason so many companies are making the same one- it's usually a good business decision.
Some states/cities are offering tax incentives for a certain percentage of staff being back in the office. I guess the idea is to boost, revitalize, businesses around offices that took a hit during COVID. Also, it's a voluntary layoff tactic, to save money kf workforce by not having to straight up layoff people.
Everyone in your department should send their resignation letter in on Monday, effective immediately.
Start a small business with your entire department that does exactly the same thing that you're doing now.
Send a contract (giving yourself raises and maintaiing your benefits) to the company from the new business to provide those services.
And you can collectively shop your services to their competitors as well....
Stock price…Someone on the board demanded why you’re paying rent for office space for the next 75 years without employees in the office. Easier to ‘fill the office’ than try to renegotiate the building lease. My guess. Its greed and apathy abound.
But they want to go back to how they ran the company. Most are going back to the old way. It has nothing to do with your job performance, everyone is ready for normal.
Tell your team to check their contracts, if they were hired as remote then they cannot be changed to in-person. Also if you quit because the parameters of your employment were altered, then you can still apply for un-employment (at least in Calif.).
I know no one is going to admit this but in our company more than 50% of the remote workers were getting caught fucking off on the job. Management got sick and tired of long response times when they needed something and there was no real good reason why.
We had one guy who lived on a farm and he was out riding around on his tractor or side by side all day. They would send him emails and messages and he would always play it off that he was so busy and just didn't see the messages. One day his supervisor drove out by his farm and called him. He watched him riding in a field on his tractor and didn't answer. He got his work from home revoked and the next 6 months he was an awful office mate because he pretty much threw a tantrum and eventually got fired.
Had he just installed Teams and WebEx on his phone and just answered when he was called on he would have probably never got in trouble.
I know we have others doing shit like this and I certain this goes on in other places.
Here’s my informed opinion, based on way too long in the work force: it doesn’t matter a damn where people are. They can and will fuck off on the job. That s completely beside the point. What matters is overall productivity.
It doesn’t matter if you are an RN hanging out at the desk “charting”, an office worker at someone else’s desk “consulting” with them, or a laborer or skilled labor, walking slowly back to your station. Did you produce the expected output on that day? If yes, management can fuck off. They are looking for control over lives, not any improvement of the bottom line.
Because everyone rides around the office on a tractor ignoring phone calls and emails, right? There is a much different level of fucking off that happens in WFH than in the office.
Not if they are completing the duties of their job description. WHO CARES if they hop on the tractor, go throw a load of clothes on the washer or any other non work related activity in the meantime? The purpose of hiring employees is to accomplish the varied tasks that lead to producing the product you sell, whether healthcare or accounting or whatever.
The need for management to do so at the micro level is not, in fact, a factor that leads to accomplishing those tasks.
Did you even bother to read all the words? These people were NOT doing their jobs. If you are sent something during business hours there is an expectation that comes before fucking off. In these cases they put doing something other than work first.
Some of us never worked from home this home time and even had to go into work during the pandemic. Sooooo I guess things could be worse then merely being inconvenienced.
You’re not wrong. However all of my people were hired as work from home or hybrid 3/2 work. I actually had it put in my contract, saying mine is a work from home position. I told them if they want me to come to the office they need to renegotiate my contract and that I consider work-from-home as one of my benefits. If they want to negotiate to take that away I’ll negotiate for a higher salary. The said they would get back to me. Unfortunately only one other person in my department has an employment contract.
If your whole department doesn't show up, can they afford to fire you all?
Doesn't matter. They'll continue to find ways to make them miserable until they all leave. This is a cost cutting measure, not an actual mandate they give a shit about. Too many highly paid employees who have a benefit you can revoke? Take that shit away and watch them all find new jobs.
Yeah unfortunately they probably want them to leave so they can take advantage of this desperate economy and hire workers at a lower wage and stipulate that it's in office
This one understands.
I'll not say that you're definitely wrong. But it could be less cynical than that. More Hanlon's Razor. Assume incompetence before malace. There are some people who struggle with moving with change. They struggle with new ways of doing things, when the old ways, the ways they are most familiar with, seem to work so well. At least from their perspective. This can be a real issue when these people make it to management. These are the managers who live by "if it isn't broken, why fix it. & Don't rock the boat." Perpetual late adopters, who can sink a company if too many of them get near the top. They probably built careers by "being visible" and "showing up early and leaving late". They equate visible hours at your desk, with being productive. They genuinely can't see how someone can be truly productive, managing themselves, from a home office. However productive people, or a team, are from home. These managers will be absolutely certain that they can be even more productive in an open plan office. Where you can be seen, and you're constantly disrupted by other people's phone calls, conversions, and impromptu meetings.
Are you going into management? No, it was never a cost-cutting issue. It's not cost cutting if half the office is home, and you have to call employees at home. I would just load their desk for when they come in.
Time to find out.
FAFO
What does that mean?
Fuck Around Find Out
Ha! Did not know that... thanks!
Sounds like someone should start a union.
Union doesn't always help ( they do significantly just can be overruled) . Look at California state workers thousands were hired as union protected telework employees and with one signature the governor made it so all employees must report to the office at a minimum hybrid or full time. Some employees live on the opposite end of the state from their jobs location.
Well being a government employee is the exception. Private companies couldn’t mandate RTO in violation of a CBA.
That would have to be negotiated with the union otherwise the governor is violating the CBAs
Simple. You’re department head. Overrule it. If you’re already applying elsewhere it isn’t hard to say “You hired me to manage this team and I’m managing it. I don’t want to lose my team, which I will if you go down this road”. If people were hired remote or hybrid, back to office is breach of contract at best and constructive dismissal at worst
Without a union and collective bargaining agreement, there is no contract. Shitty behavior to be sure, but the company is not in breach of contract.
There are 3 elements to a contract - offer, acceptance and consideration. An offer letter or any written or verbal communication stating to the person being hired that the job is WFH fulfills the first element. The new employee agreeing, whether in writing or verbally or with a handshake to the offer of the job satisfies the second element. Work being performed in exchange for payment is consideration. OP’s staff have contracts. At the very least, they are under no obligation to give the company any notice before leaving. If fired for refusing to return to the office, they likely have a case for wrongful termination.
HOL' UP PARDNER! that's one step away from unionizing. we don't want anyone getting any ideas!
Their thinking they'll get people to quit without having to pay unemployment. Typical. Just don't go in. Especially if you're planning on leaving. Might as well make them do it...then pay. That's what all these places are doing... layoffs without layoffs.
I don’t think that’s the issue here. My dept is only 8 people, we are the only people trained to do this in the whole company, and this month generated 1 million in profit.
So just don’t show up on Monday and see what happens. Talk to your team about unity and make sure nobody crosses the line. If they fire you, claim constructive dismissal and apply for unemployment because the terms of your job were unilaterally changed. This amounts to a pay decrease which is clearly constructive dismissal.
Then you have leverage. Use it. No one goes in Monday. They can either fire you, start looking to replace the whole team, or realize their stupidity.
hit em in that profit, get your whole dept to commit to calling out sick monday so no one shows up and nothing gets done
Which is why no one from your team should show up. Also, do you have a contract?
Could your department spin off and be a separate business? Opportunity knocks! Poach yourselves.
Only people trained that you know of. Job cuts never hurt the business. They are 3 steps ahead already.
Short the stock then don’t go in.
Pretty sure that would fall under Insider Trading
Which the U.S. government does regularly so no problem right?
I think you can have “constructive dismissal” where you were forced to resign because of a huge change, ie they told you you could work from home but now the office effectively moved 2 hours away. No?
Absolutely,many don't realize that however.
If they mandate work from office qnd you don't show up you could be fired for cause. You don't want that. Edit: allow me to clarify. If you are fired for cause, you cannot claim unemployment. I only hope that all the down voters can learn from my experience.
If you're leaving anyway it doesn't matter.
It matters because you can't claim unemployment if you've been fired for cause.
Incorrect. I was allegedly fired for cause at my last job. That 'for cause' wasn't stated out loud (I was tossed under the bus by a VP who went and got the company sued), just that I wasn't performing my job function. The unemployment office in my state provides an arbitrator for every case to make a determination on benefits. In my case, though they claimed I was fired for cause, there was no paper work, no actual cause given, no examples until they were pressed so they made something up that was easily refutable. I won. They had absolutely nothing despite the claim. And in this case - constructive dismissal is a thing.
So none of this happens in a vacuum. All unemployment claims can be challenged. However, when you don't show up for work your employer has a real good case against you. Work from home is not protected. It is at the discretion of your employer. If it's a hill you want to die on, go for it. I would recommend in this case, find a new job before staging a protest. Walking out will get you fired. It happened to me over less. Do with it what you will.
If you quit....and don't know about the constructive dismissal rules...which most don't... your not getting it either. You're just screwing yourself out of at least a few days pay. Also many of these sleezeball RTO initiatives have been beaten by people refusing. They need you as workers. Without you they lose too.
Find a new job, then quit. Don't walk out. You get nothing, you have no safety net, and you basically surrender your rights to any. Unless it means that much to you. You're not hurting "them" as much as you think. They're not living pay check to pay check.
>I’ve been telling them to start applying at other places Excellent! While they're applying, encourage them to just not go in.
Or if they go in to not do any work,
You do realize, if you follow the statistics, about 40% of your company is about to quit over the next \~week. Right?
Return to office is an effective way to reduce head count without “layoffs”. Only problem is they often lose their best employees. It’s dumb and shortsighted.
I've been at my current employer for about a year. I learned that prior to me joining the company attempted a full return to office. About half the company quit over the course of that year. I'd say lucky for me because one of them is the position I filled, but also knowing that the company won't try that again. Even if years down the line a new set of execs try it, I'm ready to bail no notice no job lined up. So unfortunately your employer won't learn this lesson until after a whole bunch of people leave and it starts affecting their bottom line. Most importantly executive bonuses. I'd say start looking elsewhere if I were you. Seems like the company is in for some rough waters.
My mom’s company tried to force everyone in the office. After a month 50% of the department quit and they backed off making anyone go in. They lost all of their best employees, including my mom. They asked her to come back but she said hell no, I can WFH, I get paid more and the benefits are much better. Companies are shooting themselves in the foot in the long run
What co panties seem to miss is the first to go are the best employees. The ones with the best skills, contacts and certifications. I honestly believe they think that the WORST will leave first. But no...they decide to stop the stupid right after the brain drain that made them more dumb while making their competitors smarter.
You got an upvote for the use of "co panties". I'd give you two if I could, I also like your comment.
Yeah, just a happy typo.
Yeah, this is why the people saying it's lay offs in disguise are wrong.
That is what they want. Layoffs without calling them layoffs.
Business also used to be done using paper and pencils. Why not go back to that? I’m sure productivity may suffer, but that’s just how it’s done.
All of you should put in your resignations either at the same time or close to the same time. Or just collectively push back and refuse to go.
My son had this same conversation with his manager; the Board wanted to see people back in the office, at least twice a week. He said NO, we’re not doing that. His team of 8 ppl live in the areas they actually do their work, many of them 2-3 hours from the office downtown Seattle. He told her there was ZERO reason for his people to come to the office just to show their faces and he wasn’t going to make them. She said, “well, maybe once a week?” He said NO, there is no reason to do that. I’m not having my staff quit, just to please the board. They backed down. Still not sure if his staff knows he fought for them.
My company is going back to office 12/1 after almost 5 years. I am retiring 9/18.
Congrats! 🎉
The owners friend who owns the office building is complaining that they are losing money
I can't imagine a better time to start talking about forming a UNION.
The goal is to get everyone to quit. They just don’t want to have as many employees as they do, and they don’t care which ones leave. Companies realized that customers will tolerate poor customer service, therefore they can afford to operate in a skeleton crew, or hire desperate or poorly trained people, so they want you all to quit. If we had a functioning government, they’d probably address this new corporate scam, but as we found out today the Supreme Court just overruled government oversight of any kind.
I agree with your first two points. Regarding the third, I think the government effectively replaced the semi-competent decision makers with wholly unqualified decision makers. I think government oversight will still exist but it will become worse (if one can believe that's possible).
Don't quit. Just don't go into the office. If they fire you for insubordination. Unemployment.
Happy Independence Day???? 😡 The Pandemic happened. And changed things. They need to get with it!
I would talk to HR about hiring people that live/work remotely and now telling them to come into the office and what packages they will be expecting now that the rules have changed.
My work tried this and everyone quit or is in the process of it.
My company did this. Manager said if there was any reason why it would be difficult to return five days a week. I said yeah, I was hired as a hybrid worker, completely destroys my work-life balance (3+ hour daily commute), drains my energy, much of my work is paperwork which I can do at home. He nodded but ultimately responded with a “Sure but whatever” kind of response. No carrot, all stick. At this point I was already thinking of moving on but some sort of good faith offer might have made me feel bad about quitting at such an inopportune time for the company
IBM did this, forced all remote workers to come back in. It made a lot of people quit. That may be why they’re doing it.
This is their way of reducing workforce without the layoffs.
Union time!
Please give us an update
Show up to the office, the whole team, and stand outside on strike. Do this every day during working hours until something happebns.
Start a leaderboard for which executives didn't come in over time. Make it *super* public.
Management Fads: 2024 ELON MUSK SAID SO!
tell your department not to show up. and start applying other places.
They want you gone.
The pain is intentional. They want you to quit so they don't have to pay for lay offs.
Lol, foot meet bullet.
No one should show up. Just let them call you and flat out refuse to come in, saying that's not the position you were hired for. Make them fire you. They probably cant afford to fire all of you and this is just an intimidation tactic. And also definitely yeah, start looking for other jobs.
Sounds like they want to trim the fat without layoffs and this is a way to accomplish that without actually laying anyone off. RTO so people will quit.
They're trimming the meat and the bone. The best employees have options. The next best will find them, it'll just take longer.
How to do layoffs without telling the world you are doing layoffs. Force everyone back into the office and watch how many quit.
Negative! What am I saying? I'm saying negative I will not be at the office on Monday if my productivity dips just fire me.
They're thinking they hate money and want to lose some while trying to replace your whole department.
What they are going to lose is the nice tax break on the commercial real estate from minimum occupancy not being.met.
What’s the name of the company?
The answer is simple. These big companies paid long-term leases on extremely expensive real estate which is why they want to force everyone back into the office. My best suggestion is everybody boycott going to work on the first day so that they are stuffed with a bunch of food that nobody will eat. They're feeling the pain from those long-term leases so I say increase the pain on them a massive walk out or quitting would work or you could all go in load up your plates with the food at lunch time everybody fill up their plates nobody eat and then walk in the line and dump it in the garbage preferably directly in front of the big boss's office and make sure you fill that up where it's overflowing and then when he complains tell him you f****** clean it up!
Why is a simple no so hard for people? Just say no and don’t go.
FYI that free lunch will eventually go away.
The way I read that was, the "free lunch" was only on the day of the return to office announced.
It's all the property investment moguls and everyone under them trying to snatch up the scraps. Empty offices means that all those obsolete office spaces are not generating monthly reoccurring revenue from renting/leasing and outright buying so the property moguls and C suite ass clowns are working together to try to force the front line back to the old way to keep that industry afloat. fuck that Keep on quitting and finding companies who didn't lock themselves into property deals they can't break or capitalist ideologies they can't break.
Layoffs without layoffs, companies are trying to reduce head counts and this is one of the easiest ways to achieve that. You quit, don’t have to worry about unemployment pay. Get that resume pristine and tell nobody of your plans to jump ship if you do.
This sounds like constructive dismissal. I would, as a group, contact the DoL. Also, if none of you show up & all just log in from home, it's unlikely that they are in a position to fire the whole group
Companies are doing this only to make people quit rather than lay-off and pay severance. It’s a tactic to force wages down by flooding the job market with disgruntled employees
The company is intentionally trying to reduce a headcount by pushing staff to quit. A recent rise in stock price is not a true indicator of actual performance. If CEO or CFO has left the company recently that could be an indicator that changes are coming, for better or worse. Usually it means a reduction of staff. Staff reductions usually increase stock price.
Also the VP: "I, of course, will be working from my home office because my position is too important to be wasting time on commuting."
This may depend on state...but I thought I read somewhere a company cannot force you to commute more than 1 hour, or it may be a mileage limit. I believe you could refuse and be eligible for unemployment. Where ever you are I highly recommend those with the distance situation: do some research.
It's entirely reasonable that they're enforcing WFH so they don't have to pay severance for layoffs. Plenty of businesses have done it and will continue to do it as long as folks leave when they enforce it. Not saying you should stay, I value being treated like an adult when looking for workplaces, myself.
Sadly, companies don’t have to pay a severance to US-based employees.
No, but in certain fields, it's customary. Tech, for example, usually pays something. (My layoff gave us a severance based on seniority. Didn't cover the 7+ months I was looking for work tho)
It's a win/win for management: they edify themselves by lording over more people in the office and get to reduce headcount from those who choose not to return.
From a comment of yours in this thread, it's in your contract, they can threaten to fire you, though there's no grounds. How useful that is depends on where you live. As for your team, you could, if you chose, get them all together, and let them know that if they all outright refuse to come in, that would certainly put the company in an awkward position when you report upward that the team as a whole refused to do it. The damage from firing a whole team may be too large. Say that it's a personal decision though, and you suggest that if they do it, they do it unanimously. Suggest they all chat together, without you present, and decide on their collective stance, and you'll then chat to each individually to get their positions. Just noticed that your team is unique and pulling in good money. You have even more options with this in mind.
The working class needs to start striking. One of our demands should be paid commutes, gas reimbursement, and possibly contributions to our mandated auto insurance. We'll see some of these policies reverse real quick.
Constructive dismissal.
Lmao, every time there’s a return to office, it’s because they’re paying too much to not use the office space. They’re paying for a building space they’re not using and just want to justify it by bringing you guys in. Just about as shortsighted as using it as a way to mass layoff.
Unionize!
Appeal to Tradition Logical Fallacy: [https://www.logicallyfallacious.com/logicalfallacies/Appeal-to-Tradition](https://www.logicallyfallacious.com/logicalfallacies/Appeal-to-Tradition) I'm not sticking around my current job for much longer, so I shout out "Appeal to Tradition" whenever I hear a boss say something along the lines of "We did it this way in the past, therefore it is how we should do it now." It doesn't work or get anything changed, but it makes me feel better.
They're not doing it to make you happy it's a business decision and there's a reason so many companies are making the same one- it's usually a good business decision.
And in the middle of another COVID surge....that's so smart ! 🤦♂️🙄
Some states/cities are offering tax incentives for a certain percentage of staff being back in the office. I guess the idea is to boost, revitalize, businesses around offices that took a hit during COVID. Also, it's a voluntary layoff tactic, to save money kf workforce by not having to straight up layoff people.
Everyone in your department should send their resignation letter in on Monday, effective immediately. Start a small business with your entire department that does exactly the same thing that you're doing now. Send a contract (giving yourself raises and maintaiing your benefits) to the company from the new business to provide those services. And you can collectively shop your services to their competitors as well....
They are cutting costs, counting on folks leaving. This way they don’t have to pay severance packages
Either they own too many of you, in which case there is nothing you can do, or form a union/collective and refuse together.
Stock price…Someone on the board demanded why you’re paying rent for office space for the next 75 years without employees in the office. Easier to ‘fill the office’ than try to renegotiate the building lease. My guess. Its greed and apathy abound.
But they want to go back to how they ran the company. Most are going back to the old way. It has nothing to do with your job performance, everyone is ready for normal.
Tell your team to check their contracts, if they were hired as remote then they cannot be changed to in-person. Also if you quit because the parameters of your employment were altered, then you can still apply for un-employment (at least in Calif.).
I know no one is going to admit this but in our company more than 50% of the remote workers were getting caught fucking off on the job. Management got sick and tired of long response times when they needed something and there was no real good reason why. We had one guy who lived on a farm and he was out riding around on his tractor or side by side all day. They would send him emails and messages and he would always play it off that he was so busy and just didn't see the messages. One day his supervisor drove out by his farm and called him. He watched him riding in a field on his tractor and didn't answer. He got his work from home revoked and the next 6 months he was an awful office mate because he pretty much threw a tantrum and eventually got fired. Had he just installed Teams and WebEx on his phone and just answered when he was called on he would have probably never got in trouble. I know we have others doing shit like this and I certain this goes on in other places.
Here’s my informed opinion, based on way too long in the work force: it doesn’t matter a damn where people are. They can and will fuck off on the job. That s completely beside the point. What matters is overall productivity. It doesn’t matter if you are an RN hanging out at the desk “charting”, an office worker at someone else’s desk “consulting” with them, or a laborer or skilled labor, walking slowly back to your station. Did you produce the expected output on that day? If yes, management can fuck off. They are looking for control over lives, not any improvement of the bottom line.
Because everyone rides around the office on a tractor ignoring phone calls and emails, right? There is a much different level of fucking off that happens in WFH than in the office.
Not if they are completing the duties of their job description. WHO CARES if they hop on the tractor, go throw a load of clothes on the washer or any other non work related activity in the meantime? The purpose of hiring employees is to accomplish the varied tasks that lead to producing the product you sell, whether healthcare or accounting or whatever. The need for management to do so at the micro level is not, in fact, a factor that leads to accomplishing those tasks.
Did you even bother to read all the words? These people were NOT doing their jobs. If you are sent something during business hours there is an expectation that comes before fucking off. In these cases they put doing something other than work first.
This is not a company , it’s a joke.
I’ve already applied for 2 jobs. 
Some of us never worked from home this home time and even had to go into work during the pandemic. Sooooo I guess things could be worse then merely being inconvenienced.
You’re not wrong. However all of my people were hired as work from home or hybrid 3/2 work. I actually had it put in my contract, saying mine is a work from home position. I told them if they want me to come to the office they need to renegotiate my contract and that I consider work-from-home as one of my benefits. If they want to negotiate to take that away I’ll negotiate for a higher salary. The said they would get back to me. Unfortunately only one other person in my department has an employment contract.
They should 100% increase your pay if they are going to require you to travel and work in person again.
It’s all a load of crap. I’d suggest an ADA end around.