#policy

So, lost my position October 2024. Su-ks, but adapted. New banks wants you in office 5x/week. Trying to be diplomatic, but COVID is done. For those of you who concerned about returning to office, you can whine, but most are doing it (https://www.startribune.com/target-downtown-minneapolis-office/601470398). If you don’t like it, leave, but you are gripping on the inevitable. Your return to office, while you are being paid full time, is inevitable

Before signing and agreeing the opt-in agreement, please make sure you fully read and understand what you are signing, particularly the part about basic severance and offset policy when you find new employment during the sev period.

NBC Universal just issued out a 4-Day RTO mandate starting in January, so those starting to do their job search will likely face similar challenges as more companies require RTO.

https://www.businessinsider.com/nbcuniversal-rto-order-four-days-week-memo-paramount-amazon-microsoft-2025-9

https://cordcuttersnews.com/the-end-of-dsl-traditional-home-phone-att-gains-fcc-approval-shut-down-its-copper-dsl-phone-service-in-more-areas/

Did anyone else get a final written warning after taking maternity leave, being sick, or vacation this summer? Or even after being told to stay away because there were no desks?

A new low for Ford.

If you are a HBA - time is limited. Going forward in office roles are preferred and HBA roles will only be allowed to apply internally if approved by ELT. What a terrible experience for those of us who were hired as HBA. I would’ve stayed with my prior company had I known this would be the direction. The opportunities for HBA are gone.

What typically happens if you fall below attendance model first time? Do you get put on a naughty list?

Is there anyone who can confirm whether CRG will adopt a four-day work week starting in January, as we have heard from other business units? I know some Markets are in 4 days but will this mandatory for all others?

From the new rating scale, what do you need for a promotion on scale of 1-5. My manager is telling me he can promote team members on met (3) but I heard from reliable sources only if they get 1 or 2 can be promoted. Does anyone know the correct answer?

https://www.moreno.senate.gov/press-releases/new-moreno-bill-would-crack-down-on-outsourcing-fund-american-workers/

Congratulations DW! What a genius…

https://www.livemint.com/news/us-news/is-donald-trump-looking-to-block-it-outsourcing-to-india-laura-loomer-reveals/amp-11757166244798.html

What is the severance policy and payout for employees with less than 5 years of service?

www.foxnews.com/politics/gop-senator-drops-hammer-companies-shipping-jobs-overseas-crucial-bill.amp

https://www.tmonews.com/2025/09/t-mobiles-app-policy-backfires-as-workers-fight-back-with-penny-trick/

I guess all those Indian contractors that wrote the t-life app will get a bonus. While those who work in the stores get sc--wed.

Halting International Relocation of Employment Act or "HIRE Act" has potential to add a 25% surcharge on outsourced labor. Companies also can no longer deduct those payments for a tax advantage. The Act has to pass but could signal massive changes for companies like Elevance.

During a town hall El Jefe let the cat out of the bag – NCRV is making less money than it is spending so the reduction last week was necessary. He did say he was looking forward with excitement – most likely because he knows there are thousands more that can be cut if necessary!!

Something else that he said was important, he encouraged everyone to go to your doctor appointments and take care of your sick children.

It is what he did not say that is really important here – the fact that they are tracking the number of days in the office and amount of time that you are in the office – so he should have also added that since they are tracking everyone’s time - make sure you are in the office the required number of hours or you will be placed on the next CUT list…

Some friendly advice - to be careful you might want to take a sick day or vacation day when you have to take care of yourself and your family!!

Something else they don’t advertise – you can also take time off without pay. This is useful if you have run out of vacation or sick days and it is obviously not the most desired path but it may just help you keep your job….especially next year when the 5 days / week…8 hours per day requirement kicks in.

My advice is to take your vacation without pay and then save your vacation days for when life happens…I am being sarcastic of course..

To paraphrase El Jefe – if you don’t want to be here 5 days a week 8 hours per day then they don’t want you!! In my opinion that includes just about everyone..

Some roles need to be in the office. Some people prefer the office. That’s fine, if that’s you, then go in.

But for everyone else whose jobs don’t require face-to-face interaction or physical presence, the choice should be ours or our manager's. Work where you’re most productive, and come into the office when it’s actually necessary. That’s what true balance & flexibility looks like.

I worked from home every single day for 8 years before Covid, with no issues. My productivity was high, my customers and peers were happy, and the work got done. So what exactly changed?.. Nothing, except leadership’s obsession with control.

RTO shouldn’t be forced. It should be optional. Why is this so hard for them to grasp?

Email received today:

Need to Know:

• An in-office day is considered 8 hours in the office
• New reporting will show how long employees are in the office each day
• Employees are expected to be in the office 3 "full' days a week

Wexford is ignoring your instructions.

https://www.cnbc.com/amp/2025/09/04/paramount-5-day-a-week-mandate.html

Has anyone heard details on how much of a decrease we will hear about in pto on benefit changes that will be announced on sept 10?

Fresh off my Care Giver time off helping my Grandmother, I came back somewhat refreshed with a positive attitude thinking AT&T might have their Sh!+ together. Unfortunately, that is not the case. It was an interesting report -- every day was low, and 2 days robbed me of more than 4 hours alone. Total understatement was around 7 hours. The only thing really worse than the presence report is our ability to secure the network.

Any truth to the Compliance department being told they need to be in the office 4 days a week starting Jan 1st?

Just curious, how your teams and coworkers reacted? For sites that aren't core hubs - did they share more details what will happen?
Are there enough spaces on sites to manage the required capacity?

I feel like there's been a lot of rumors going on here and within the office about what is going on right now. Although this is a failure on HR, lets look at the facts:

Year 1: HR flagged people who were coming in less than one day a week (swipe only)
Year 2: HR flagged people who were coming in less than two days a week (swipe only)

We are on Year 3. This report seems to be coming out yearly. These people got warnings from their managers, nothing more nothing less and next strike would've been HR. So lets dive into the two main questions:

1) Is it possible to track where someone is working from? Yes, but HCSC is usually slow to implement and I doubt HR is too technically savvy (so they'd need consultants/IT). This is possible, but there is no confirmation this is happening yet. Wouldn't be surprised though if they are looking into this/have a plan to implement but again just speculation at this point.

2) Do you need to come in 3 days a week or else HR will flag you right away? This one I am more skeptical on. Don't get me wrong they could bump it up on next years report to 3 days to flag, but as mentioned on here, PTO, people getting sick, etc. You really think HR/Executives aren't working from home when they're sick or are making up days in office? Also they'd be calling in so many people if they were looking at this weekly. They'd call people in for long PTOS (I Just took 2 weeks so there's no way I could make it up in one month anyways). My best guess if anything they'd bump it to 2.5 days next report, but who knows maybe they actually do 3 and half the company gets a warning (which would be id--tic).

Don't get me wrong, they do seem to be getting stricter. but countless rumors do not help with people's anxiety about the situation. Also if anyone in HR is looking at this, please do better :) Why not have a townhall specifically on this topic and we can finally put this behind us. Let the people speak directly and ask questions, we can collaborate and make this work for all of us.

Will we be fired for not going in enough? I know they are tracking badge scans. 31s and above are mandatory back to office including telecommuters. I am sure it is only a matter of time where everyone else goes back at this point.

This is ask for all Directors and Executives who got impacted by Layoff.
I've been working in Oracle for 10+ years now and I am impacted by layoff. I don't regret the layoff. One question which was lingering in my mind was despite my honest day and night contributions to the project, I was not even considered for promotion or growth.
I had been exceeding expectations of my managers/executives and each time I raised my bar level and was able to meet it. At the end of focal cycle all I got was a 2% or 5% hike to maximum which was almost equivalent to lowest performer in my team.
I even attempted to jump to another project offering a senior role but was cut down by internal recruiters saying I can't move up in lateral jumps. The project seemed like a dead-end for me and I wasn't even allowed to move to another project which looks promising technology atleast but in vain.
What was the Ego which prevented you guys from helping your employees grow. Is it typical asian mindset ? to slave one person and extract everything ?
All I noticed was some monkey executive coming from external company (Infact he was less experienced than I was) and started controlling us. He doesn't even know half of the architecture I know about org. Is this the fate ?

https://www.theregister.com/2025/09/04/ibm_cloud_basic_support_changes/

Shift to self-service will apparently improve support, presumably Big Blue's bottom line too

Thu 4 Sep 2025 // 03:32 UTC
IBM Cloud will update the services it provides under its Basic Support tier, which will move to a self-service model in January 2026.

The Basic Support tier is free to all IBM Cloud customers. Big Blue describes it as “Basic business protection that is included with your IBM Cloud Pay-As-You-Go or Subscription account.” The service is well-named as it includes the ability to raise cases with IBM’s support team 24x7, but doesn’t include a guaranteed initial response time or a dedicated account manager.

In an email sent to customers, IBM advises the changes coming next year mean Basic Support users will lose the opportunity to “open or escalate technical support cases through the portal or APIs” but can “self-report service issues (e.g., hardware or backup failures) via the Cloud Console” and “open Billing and Account cases in the IBM Cloud Support Portal.”

The email advises customers that wish to stay on the Basic Support tier that they can continue using the watsonx-powered IBM Cloud AI Assistant that Big Blue upgraded earlier this year. The ancient IT company also promises that, come January 2026, it will launch a tool called “Report an Issue” that offers “faster issue routing”, and that an expanded library of support documentation will “provide deeper self-help content.”

The missive also suggests “If your organization needs technical support, faster response times, or severity-level control, we recommend upgrading to a paid support plan.” Prices start at $200/month.

IBM opens its email by stating “This no-cost support level will shift to a self-service model to align with industry standards and improve your support experience.”

We leave it to IBM customers to judge the veracity of the second assertion, but IBM isn’t remiss with the claim that its future low-end support offering is close to industry standards. The basic support tier offered by AWS and Google Cloud includes access to community forums, online docs, and help with billing. Microsoft’s basic tier adds an “Azure Advisor” that suggests ways to optimize use of its cloud based on consumption patterns.

The big difference here is that AWS, Azure, and Google are the world’s three leading hyperscale clouds, with 30 percent, 20 percent, and 13 percent market share respectively according to recent data from Synergy Research Group. IBM Cloud has two-to-four percent market share, a position that could mean it needs to cut costs by reducing free services, or that it’s just not interested in serving the kind of users that want free support.

If Big Blue has decided to ditch small cloudy customers, it’s not alone: China’s Tencent chose to stop working with customers who only use basic cloud services because they weren't profitable.

The vast majority in my union that I ask says they voted no, but our contract was supposedly ratified 54% yes. I do not understand why did so many union members ‘supposedly’ vote yes to contracts that did not at least equal the previous one? What happened to the determination and the will everyone had just a couple years ago to strike? Is over 50% of union members happier now than they were a couple years ago? Has anyones work conditions improved enough (or at all?) since the last contract that you accepted smaller pay increases?

Would love to know if any REAL managers have insight as to how/why employees are let go versus others.

This is MY opinion so take that as you will. It's worked out for me in every job I've had and, Dell being a company that is on a 24/7/365 layoff frenzy, I'm still sitting pretty good.

If you don't want to be laid off then just be a middle ground employee. Try to border the "top performing" employees area but don't go much further than that. Be easy going, easy to get along with everyone and don't start arguments/conflicts; and don't voice any strong opinions or cause controversy. Basically, just stay as neutral as possible because the more you are "known" - for good or bad - the bigger the target is on your back during layoffs.

Managers always say "they had no choice in who to let go" - That is 100% BS unless HR/execs are simply wanting to get rid of high earners to save money. HR and execs have NO idea who you are, what you do and how well you do your job. Your direct manager does, though.

It's more beneficial to get rid of 5 people making 150-200k/year versus letting go 10 people making 50-70k/year. The math doesn't math up but you get my point I hope.

Strategically speaking, you get rid of the highest salaried low performers first, then the bottom performers overall, then if necessary, low performers in between.

Managers/directors have a checklist for layoffs that determine who they have to let go/who stays. It's more of a 1-10 type of check box but to keep it simple... Kinda how Tell Dell surveys work.

Does he perform well in his job? yes/no (1-10)
Is he easy to work with? yes/no (1-10)
Is he liked by his coworkers/others? yes/no (1-10)
Does he go above and beyond? yes/no (1-10)
Does he call in sick often? yes/no (1-10)
Does or has he had complaints against him? yes/no (1-10)
Do they volunteer to take on tasks/projects? yes/no (1-10)
Are they habitually late? yes/no (1-10)
Are they reliable? yes/no (1-10)
Have they had any write ups/coaching plans/PIPS?: yes/no - this will do it right here if you have and many/most of the answers are "no/indifferent" in the above questions.
Any HR tickets filed against them? yes/no (1-10)
Have they willfully broken any company policy? yes/no (1-10)
Have they attempted to steal confidential information? yes/no (1-10)

I made all of this up as I have NO clue but these are my guesses as to what some of the criteria would be. My dad was a sr. manager at Motorolla, Freescale and AMD for 20 years and he told me that when he did have to do layoffs, he had a "matrix" type sheet in which he'd rate employees on based on a bunch of questions; similar to the above. I'm sure Dell does it similarly.

I don't think most people are laid off at random though.

Does anyone know if there are implications of quitting immediately after your parental leave ends?

I am a former employee of Lowe’s and I can tell anyone who reads this that Lowe’s will be bankrupt in 5 years. I bought a $1300 fridge nothing fancy because of space constraints. The fridge side feels like it doesn’t have a good magnetic seal. Lowes use to swap doors, told me I had to bring whole fridge back. If I bring it back I’m returning it! All for a door swap! Pass any issue off to the customer by changing their operations. Lowes is really going down the cr-pper on customer service side of things. What an unamerican corporate clown show. Never again shopping at Lowe’s ever again unless it’s a part the HD store don’t have. Lowe’s is going to loose a lot of customers by treating customers like this. Over a stupid door.

How come some people get warnings for not being in the office for 3 days but some managers work from Amsterdam with a Germany contract? This is illegal.

SVB invited HR to provide an "update". 4 days in office coming?

Starting January 2026. Is it across the board? Is it per Derek’s directs? Anyone know?

https://www.wionews.com/world/-big-change-in-h1b-green-card-soon-says-lutnick-indians-to-be-affected-1756292537996

Companies have to be competitive by relying on cheap indentured labor or outsourcing work to sweatshops. If NM don't, fall behind in the market. To see real change, elect politicians who will protect American jobs by banning H-1B visas, reducing immigration, and placing tariffs on outsourced services from cheaper countries.

A company is competitive by taking advantage of cheap indentured labor importation and outsourcing work to sweatshops. If you need to see change then elect politicians that will change laws to protect American jobs by banning H1B, reducing immigration and tariff services from India

Don't forget, if a holiday falls on one of your three office days, you're required to make that day up on another day during the week. They're watching (per my manager).

https://www.financialexpress.com/business/investing-abroad-h-1b-to-green-card-hurdle-labor-market-test-fails-applicant-struggle-for-perm-approval-3955644/