#remotework

Inspirational stuff from the 2026 Proxy Statement. Bill’s total compensation jumped from $22M to over $29M (32%) this year. Meanwhile, in the cubicles, we’re out here debating if our 1.5% merit raise covers the gas for the new 5-day RTO mandate. Truly a masterclass in 'Leading the Way.' Thanks for the motivation, Bill!

https://pex.broadridge.com/getdocument.asp?doc=4CC6BB74616CC807E06317289D0A6255&type=edgar#3547022_1074842_1074924

Baker McKenzie is closing its Tampa back-office location. This action is part of the firm's broader restructuring. The firm is moving to a remote operational model. This change means Tampa-based staff will work remotely. It follows earlier announcements of global staff cuts.

Tampa, Florida

https://abovethelaw.com/2026/03/top-10-biglaw-firm-shuts-down-back-office-location-as-restructuring-and-staff-cuts-continue/

I’m currently remote and looking to relocate with my spouse, who just received a great offer in a different city. While the bank doesn't have an office in that specific city, it does operate within that state (the nearest office is about 4 hours away so I will have to continue remote). Has anyone remote (geocode C) successfully made a move like this in the last 3 to 6 months while staying remote?

1. Folks will spend more time finding available seats
2. Will spend more time commuting during peak hours
3. Will log in less at home if 8 hours requirement is met for day.
4. People may work on different shifts like 6am-2pm vs 9-5 vs 10-6. It’s hard to schedule meeting across different time zones.
   What else?

Is anyone familiar with what circumstances must be met to qualify for an exception to remain home based? I’d like to know before submitting my request.

On Employees that are fully remote in claims with no offices? Are they moving the jobs to the hubs or no, and staying fully remote?

Many employees today are feeling the pressure of rising living costs. Housing, groceries, and transportation expenses continue to climb, and commuting to work has become an increasingly heavy financial burden for many families.

For this reason, I believe Canon should seriously consider offering greater flexibility when it comes to working from home.

Across different sectors and regions of the world, many companies are already encouraging remote work where possible. This approach helps reduce unnecessary commuting, lowers fuel consumption, and eases the financial strain placed on employees.

In times when global energy markets remain volatile due to geopolitical tensions involving countries like Iran, Israel, and major powers such as the United States, reducing unnecessary travel is not only economically sensible, it is also responsible.

Allowing employees to work from home when their role permits can help reduce commuting costs, decrease fuel consumption, and improve overall work-life balance. It is a practical solution that benefits both employees and employers.

Flexibility in the workplace is no longer simply a perk; it has become an important way to support employees during a time of economic uncertainty and rising costs.

To Control gas prices & save the our reserves, Should WFH allowed until war ends?

“Innovate, use the latest tech, develop the latest tech. Now hurry up and go into the office instead of working remotely.” Talk about old school. Yet we try to sell that we are on the ‘cutting edge’.

I want to come into work on Monday mornings in order to put my laptop in work desk or file cabinet, then go back home. I don't want the screen to lock or for Teams to show I'm away.

What settings in Control Panel do I change?

Wait being a inflexible employer doesn't get you productivity gains?

https://thehill.com/opinion/technology/5775420-remote-first-productivity-growth/

" The Flex Index finds that fully flexible companies grew revenues 1.7 times faster than mandate-driven firms from 2019 to 2024, even after adjusting for industry and size. "

New global Hybrid and Remote Working Policy took effect from 6 March. Can someone please confirm how attendance is being monitored eg how long the monitoring window is and what data is used.

To all you hard working employees,

I have first hand information of a remote CMSA willfully abuser their remote work privileges. This person violates HIPPA on a regular basis, takes well over hour breaks everyday on a every other week basis. I have had their laptop on my lap and seeing member names, being present during meetings, and all the while this employee is driving or at a friend’s house or doing god knows what else. It’s abuse of privileges and that’s obvious. This person manipulates their manager to stay in good graces but in reality if this company laid off anyone, this person in question should be the first to go. So this may sound vindictive but who do I whistleblow to?? Because none of you can justify this kind of behavior.

It has been a year since the RTO policy and the divide it has created is hard to ignore. Those of us working remote or choosing offices closer to home often feel excluded from decisions, meetings, and the informal networks that keep work flowing. It is isolating and the pressure to play the game just to be seen is real.

Meanwhile, many in-office employees are not thriving either. Badging in, headphones on, fake smiles, people are disconnected, isolated, and going through the motions. There is no real connection and the culture has become draining, even toxic, taking a toll on mental and physical health.

The truth is clear. RTO has not solved productivity or engagement. It has highlighted a disconnect, a tension, and a struggle on both sides. Anyone else experiencing this? How are you navigating it?

https://www.thehill.com/opinion/technology/5775420-remote-first-productivity-growth/

Why would a company that makes money from supplying computers to home workers mandate a policy that returns all worker to return to the office a minimum of 3 days a week?

You would think that, as a computer company, HP would encourage remote working to be an example for other companies to take note on how they can have remote employees too. HP would then continue to have a sales bo-m (like they did in 2020) on laptops to supply workers.

Bottom line, HP wants to justify having large useless buildings by filling them up again with employees.

Good article from "The Hill" on remote work, flexibility and why mandates just don't work.

https://thehill.com/opinion/technology/5775420-remote-first-productivity-growth/

"...Leaders sometimes argue that stricter in-office rules are needed to fix collaboration or innovation. The better path is to raise the bar on management, not badge swipes. The Institute for Corporate Productivity report describes organizations that use “magnet, not mandate” logic, pairing remote-first defaults with intentional gatherings, clear policies and outcome-based performance management. The combination produces high trust, defined norms and sustained results.

The risk profile for mandates is asymmetric. If they fail to lift performance, you absorb morale damage and replacement costs while sending a public signal that policy, not management, is your lever. If they “work,” the effect often comes from short-term pressure rather than durable operating improvements. .."

"...Executives face a choice. They can pursue badge-driven control that fails to raise performance and risks losing their best people, or they can treat flexibility as a strategy, design for trust and clarity, and measure what matters. The organizations that choose the latter are building stronger teams and better businesses. The smart move now is not to roll back flexibility — it is to raise the standard for how you lead..."

No airline background, and remote from Sweden…

Just going to leave this here.

https://thehill.com/opinion/technology/5775420-remote-first-productivity-growth/amp/

Hey Mike…. With regular gas prices over $4 a gallon, how about some relief? Maybe a cost of living raise or the ability to work from home until things normalize again, at least hybrid

Anyone hear anything about returning to office? I hear rumors we are going to be mandated to become hybrid from fully remote work.

The one advantage this company always had was flexibility. Even before COVID people weren’t chained to a desk five days a week. That trust made the job sustainable and made people willing to go the extra mile.

Now that flexibility is gone. And with it, the one thing that actually differentiated this place.

Instead of motivating people, a strict five-day RTO mandate has created the exact opposite effect. High performers stop going above and beyond, while mediocre performers can hide behind a badge swipe and eight hours of “presence.” When attendance becomes the metric, you get attendance.

At the same time, compensation here isn’t truly market based. Raises and bonuses are largely blanket treatments, so individual effort barely changes the outcome. When results aren’t meaningfully rewarded and flexibility is taken away, the incentive becomes obvious: do the minimum and check the box.

Meanwhile the industry has already moved on. WFH and hybrid are now the standard across tech, telecom, finance, and most corporate roles. Only a handful of companies are still trying to force strict five-day office mandates. Fighting that reality doesn’t make this place competitive. It just makes it an outlier.

Ignore the market and ignore your own employees long enough and the result is predictable: the best people leave, and the only ones left are the ones with fewer options.

If I am a grade 16 remote based employee should I be concerned about eventual layoff? Not a people leader.

With the average cost of gas is $3.32/gal , and no end in sight with the war with Iran, will the RTO be loosen especially when gas prices continue to skyrocket the longer we stay in the war? We’ll soon be losing money just to go into the office to sit in our cubes on teams calls.

Got a nice bump, remote engineer , ive seen loads of remote ppl paid over 200 and not enough work,hope the same in 2026,

I just put in my two weeks after getting the bonus and accepting a new fully remote job that I start Monday. Rick and EC you will not be missed.

Working fully remote from home. Probably won't retire till 65 or more. Too much of a gravy train to give up.

Return to office policies feel disconnected from how many teams actually work now. A lot of teams are spread across different cities and countries. Even when people sit in the same building, most of their meetings are still on video calls. The day ends up looking exactly like a remote workday, except people had to commute to do it.

It creates a strange situation... Now, peeps spend time and money getting to the office just to log into virtual meetings anyway. The actual work process does not change much. Communication tools, documents, and collaboration ALL still happn online. At that point the office becomes more symbolic than practical, and people start questioning what the real purpose of the policy is.

Questions for HR reading this.

1. Are they planning on doing a mass layoff of remote employees?

2. Is there any truth to the shift of sending more positions overseas?

3. What are we not being told?

Companies that operate with a hub-based workforce model should align their teams geographically rather than scattering small numbers of employees across multiple states. When the majority of a department or function is concentrated in a primary hub, it makes operational, financial, and collaborative sense to place the entire team in that same location instead of maintaining one or two employees in various other states.

First, collaboration and communication improve significantly when teams are centralized. Even in remote environments, employees located within the same region or hub tend to share similar, leadership structures, and workplace culture. When teams are spread out as “one here and two there,” those individuals often become disconnected from the main group, making collaboration less efficient and creating unnecessary communication barriers.

Second, centralizing teams supports stronger leadership and accountability. Managers can more effectively support employees when their teams are structured in a clear and cohesive way. When a handful of employees are placed outside the main hub, they may receive less consistent oversight, mentorship, and integration into team processes. Bringing employees together in the dominant hub location creates clearer reporting structures and stronger team cohesion.

Third, there are cost and operational efficiencies. Supporting employees in multiple states often introduces additional administrative complexity such as payroll compliance, state-specific regulations, and HR management differences. Consolidating teams in the primary hub reduces these complexities and allows resources to be focused where the company already has the strongest infrastructure.

Finally, a hub model should actually function like a hub. The purpose of a hub is to concentrate talent, resources, and collaboration in one central location. Maintaining scattered employees across various states contradicts the very concept of a hub structure and weakens the benefits that such a model is intended to provide.

For these reasons, companies that promote a hub-based workforce strategy should ensure that teams are largely located within the same primary hub rather than distributing small numbers of employees across multiple states where they operate in isolation from the core teams.

The Australian state of Victoria said on ​Wednesday it will launch legislation ‌to give employees the legal right to work from home two days ​per week. The laws, that ​are due to come into effect ⁠on September 1, will allow ​anyone with the ability to work ​from home to do so, regardless of the size of their workplace.
“Work from ​home works for families, because ​it saves time and money and it ‌gets ⁠more parents working,” Victoria Premier Jacinta Allan said in a statement.

https://www.reuters.com/sustainability/australian-state-plans-give-employees-legal-right-work-home-2026-03-04/

Get back in the office for collaboration better results. Head of US business segment, ELT member that doesn’t apply to you. You can live in a different country.

I’m honestly having some regret about taking this job, especially after finding this forum. I wish I had come across these comments before accepting the offer, but here I am. Is it really as bad as people describe?

I started in January and my role is remote, but based on what I’m reading, it sounds like that could change at any time. I also don’t really feel like part of the team yet. I assumed it was just because I’m still new, but now I’m starting to wonder if this is just the culture here.

Is this how most people feel? Is everyone just quietly checked out?

Someone recently commented here they were hearing some orgs might be going from office to fully remote. Any more details?

Anyone working remotely from Thailand for Bank of America — any issues with IT or access, or was it fine? Thanks.

Read here that a tiny group might get to stay remote, at their manager's discretion. Any real criteria behind it, or just who you know?

I've posted about this a few times and get downvoted/laughed at but I'm telling you, full remotes are being targeted now. It was only a matter of time... Dell has made it blatantly clear that they want ALL employees local to an office - as in ALL employees go INTO an office - and that remotes are not eligible for promotions or internal movement. Which puts remotes in a literal dead end job. I 100% guarentee they will cap remotes raises to 2% and 50% bonus's sooner than later, as well.

I had my 1x1 w/ my boss/sr director the other day and I asked what the IBP was. He didn't know for sure but, mentioned he laid off a few people (3) under him and saw the bonus payout for them - which was 100% - but, stated that they were all remotes and that was the primary driving factor for laying them off.

According to what he told me, those 3 were good at their job but was told by higher ups and/or HR to remove 3 remotes that reported to him. I didn't know any of them as they weren't on my team but, long story short.. .they were laid off for being remote.

We have a great relationship with each other so I asked out of curiosity if remotes are being targeted more for layoffs. He didn't say yes or no but in a round about way basically said that yes they are, and has heard from execs that the "plan" is to reduce raises and bonus's for them next year. Basically an attempt to force resignation. Exceptions will likely be made for those who are incredibly vital to an org but otherwise, the plan is to slowly get rid of remotes.

If you are full remote but live near enough to an office, I'd recommend switching your sh-t to in office versus remote... Make the drive or relocate if you value your job because remotes are the ones who will be first to go on teams when layoffs happen.