#rto

The flu usually takes 3–5 days to recover—but how can I manage a four-day in office while I’m still sick? Taking 4 days off doesn’t make sense.

Just stay at home and don’t distract everyone else. Trying to concentrate is hard enough even with the whole flex desk BS. No one needs to hear a blow by blow of your personal problems. There are still people at this company that actually have deliverables.

Today, Cara Sylvester shared that 150 TMs had their remote roles changed to Minneapolis-based hybrid. Impacted TMs seem to be concentrated in core IM and planning, as well as some PIM Ops TMs as well. They stated that they are providing relocation assistance or separation packages.

Thank you John for RTO

GK wanting us to be a category 2 bank is the real reason for RTO and offshoring more and more.

Buildings give us more assets and offshoring more of a global footprint.

Research to learn more.

Not about collaboration, which we already knew.

I work for US Bank's competitor and out of curiousity checked this site. I see a lot of uproar about RTO...believe me, we also went through it in 2022.

My advice to all of you is to be careful.
If they aren't checking your in network office time, they will be. A bunch of our employees got fired over swiping badges and leaving or minimal office network connectivity.
A bunch of others got fired because they were in non compliance.

Sadly, you won't win this fight. We have also tried everything and the push back was immense. Corporate America is all copying each other and they want people back in offices.

Wish you all the best.

Do our WFIP staff have to be in the office 3-4 days per week for 8 hours a day too? I realized I haven't heard a word about it from anyone, ever, so am curious how evenly the rules are being applied. Probably another best kept secret to alienate the US employees hat Charlie hates so much

Hearing from several different LOB friends that the RTO reporting is no longer being monitored. Any managers have intel on this?

Manager here — trying to sanity check something.

I haven’t been given any formal tools, dashboards, or defined thresholds for tracking RTO attendance on my team, but I’m hearing a lot of specifics (e.g., ~50% thresholds, rolling 2–3 month averages, automated notifications).

Are other managers actually seeing concrete metrics behind the scenes, or are these assumptions based on when HR flags something?

Trying to understand what’s real vs inferred.

Got the RTO communication and this line stuck out:

“Seating is prioritized for employees first, with unassigned areas and seats an option for contractors on an as-available, first-come, first-served basis”

Read that carefully. They aren’t saying there’s plenty of room and contractors just get second pick. They’re saying contractors get whatever is left over on a first come first served basis. That’s not a seating policy, that’s a disclaimer. They already know there aren’t enough seats.

And FTE seating isn’t even assigned, it’s open within neighborhoods. So the “priority” is theoretical. A contractor walks in, sees an open desk, sits down. Nobody is checking IDs at the door.

The part nobody is talking about: are contractors even on a 5 day mandate? Because if FTEs are legally obligated to be there every day and contractors are not, you’ve got people who’ve worked there for years eating a full commute while embedded contractors log in from home.
This email answered nothing and accidentally raised three new questions.

Anyone else getting actual clarity from their managers?

With or without set daily schedules?

They ain’t tracking sh*t keep doing it…

BNY Mellon’s transformation now resembles a tightly coordinated execution of the McKinsey cost reduction playbook, and employees on TheLayoff.com have been documenting the pattern in real time.

What appear to be uncoordinated, isolated decisions — RTO pressure, minimal merit increases, shrinking teams, selective backfilling, and quiet office closures — align directly with the consulting frameworks used to drive sustained operating expense reduction. This is all by design.

The Platform Operating Model (P-O-M) is the structural engine behind this shift. By standardizing processes, consolidating technology, and centralizing work into platform hubs, P-O-M enables organizational delayering, automation, and location strategy at scale. Employees describe this as work being “platformed,” automated, or reassigned to lower cost regions, particularly Pune.

International labor laws also shape the strategy. In the U.S. and U.K., strict notification rules, severance expectations, and WARN Act thresholds make large layoffs expensive and highly visible. In contrast, offshore hubs operate under more flexible labor regimes, allowing faster scaling, easier restructuring, and lower long term cost commitments. This is why employees increasingly observe that even offshore roles are not permanent; as the cost model scales globally, work continues migrating to the lowest cost compliant jurisdiction available.

RTO, low raises, and real estate consolidation are deliberate levers within this model: RTO increases voluntary attrition, minimal wage growth suppresses labor cost inflation, office closures reduce fixed costs and concentrate work in platform hubs.

The TheLayoff.com threads reflect this architecture in motion — “stealth layoffs,” “jobs shifting offshore,” “constant reorganizations,” and “RTO used as a filter” — all consistent with a long horizon, platform driven cost transformation strategy.

If RTO policies are enforced with strict measurement, tracking, and compliance expectations across employees, why doesn’t the same rigor apply to Cloud leadership (Head of Cloud and his directs)?

GL17/GL18 leaders—many already significantly compensated from prior Amazon equity and long industry tenure—operate with materially less visible accountability, while execution is heavily dependent on engineering teams under them or contracting firms.

The pattern is consistent: delivery is externalized or engineering team , credit is cloud leadership , and accountability becomes diffused.

If operational discipline is the standard, it cannot be selective. It must apply uniformly across all levels—including senior leadership—based on measurable impact, not hierarchy.

Otherwise, it stops being governance and becomes structural protection of the top layer.

If anyone is negatively impacted by "not meeting the RTO goal" and is fired, you better run and file a case. Document that they admitted their data and reporting was inaccurate and inconsistent. They falsified reporting!!! Also, its a tad bit discriminatory if they are punishing people inconsistently and there is no Policy or equal treatment but "discretionary". This is too easy and seems targeted. Are you over 40? A woman? A POC? Regardless of whether people like it or not, there are laws that are still applicable and you cannot target, discriminate or retaliate. File complaints. Document! Document! Document! Our HR is a joke! They leave it vague depending on no one knowing their rights and think their too big of a company to fail. Learn your rights and how to fight. Too many running on fear and thats how they got you.

Been thinking about this a lot lately. Going back to four days a week in the office with the open plan unassigned seating (HMP) has definitely brought some good energy. You run into folks from different teams, have those quick real-time conversations, and get problems solved faster than the endless email chains we had before. Its helped cut down on friction and made collaboration feel smoother.

That said, I keep noticing how our field teams run on a solid 5-day rhythm and it shows in their consistency and momentum. Maybe bringing the office side to a full 5 days could line everything up even better across the company. Wrapping the week strong with everyone in on Friday, plus the occasional half-day on Saturday when it makes sense, might give us that extra edge to stay ahead of the competition and feel more like one-team.

Chevrons culture already feels special, and pushing a bit more on the in-office side could make it even stronger. Its one of the reasons Im still optimistic about sticking around long-term.

Anyone else seeing similar things? Especially curious how the current 4-day setup is landing for field and ops folks. Are you noticing quicker decisions or better handoffs, or do you think more consistent office time would help?

Every time I see stories about “coffee badging,” it’s hard not to feel frustrated. Some people are effectively gaming the system and collecting paychecks, while others are putting in real effort and trying to make a meaningful contribution.

FIRE THEM ALL!

How many in here moved to Dallas and what decision led you and your families to do so? My family is going through a forced relocation. We are choosing to move to keep the job, for some social life and probably better opportunities for jobs.

Is it true that we are being asked to move in July? Manager has no information. Told that we have time till September. Looking aggressively for an opening in Philly area jut no luck. Have to start looking for apartments if moved to NYC than commuting.

Apartments are very unaffordable in N Jersey or NYC suburbs with commuting time and cost. The overall tax impact is also high, if one has to move to NYC location.

Effectively a pay cut in these hard times.

Yet there are only five days left. Any ideas? Am I sc--wed? Has anyone hacked into the Workstyle database?

I'd say they depends on how they were hired. If they were hired during covid as 100% remote, the salary they negotiated took into account the lack of a commute. Dell has changed that deal now. You don't think those folks have a right to feel a little pi---d? I negotiate/expect 20% higher salary to be in the office.

If they were hired onsite, and went remote during covid, they have nothing really to complain about, but Dell hired a ton of people full time remote during covid and has spent the last 2 years trying to sc--w them into quitting. That's a problem, and even the "get back in the office" types should be able to recognize that.

This, @av+1kpdrarz1.

No revelations yet, besides my expenses going up and feeling like they want to get rid of us. I haven't met new people, I haven't expanded collaboration beyond my usual circle (whom I communicate with online), and I most definitely haven't become more creative. I do focus less, and my productivity has fallen somewhat, so there's that.

Just saying.
The whole thing makes no sense.
Why come in at all.

OK, so I come in, 40 min commute one way, but it's OK.

Then I spend all day in meetings with bunch of folks who are not here, everyone is calling in.

Then I spend 40 minutes again going home.

The whole thing makes no sense, the higher up you go, the less of them are in the office.

I cannot do anything about it but it feels a little bit better after writing this. Sorry about the negative energy.

I have a hard time believing this is just about managing real estate.

Especially with gas prices climbing. And since raises don't keep up with actual inflation, the rumored 5-day RTO would fit perfectly with their plan to push out as many of us as they can.

Leadership is clearly on an attrition drive, and making people quit on their own has been a main goal of RTO from the very beginning.

This 4 days a week sitting in a cubicle is literally soul crushing. I worked remotely or mostly remotely for years before CVX and only came here under the guise of flexible work and I would give up an annual bonus and $30k a year to wfh. If the hiring market weren’t so dismal I’d already be out.

I heard through the grapevine that a certain role in the private bank is being switched to remote ahead of the RTO mandate. This role has pretty much ignored all previous in-office mandates and is 90% men. Not a good look. Managers in other roles are told their jobs are on the line if their employees don’t comply.

Due to the new Formula, you will have to come in extra days if you have Vacation and Sick time if you want to hit the 60%.

How is this legal? So 11 days was good, but now they say it’s no good because new rule is 14 to 15 days, depending on the month. Applies retroactively since January since expectations was to be in office…but for 15 days????

My manager says I am on a list for not being onsite enough from January to now. They are reporting out attendance percentages.

That's a rhetorical question, by the way.

This won't be layoff in the traditional sense, it will be realign/restructure/RTO for company needs orne forced out maybe some early retirement for people. But SF doesn't need layoffs when they can just pull the right levers and force people to leave. That last giant survey we did a few months back was just them finding out how far they can turn the dial each time to achieve the desired effect.
OP: @eb+1kp6mkfmf

Bumping this up for visibility.

Curious if anybody else works on the weekend and isn't seeing it reflected in the time tracking. I don't work weekends regularly, but need to be in the office for certain software changes/deployments. I've, with my managers acknowledgement, treated this as part of my RTO days, but now I'm out 2-3 days what was previously shown.

I'm not going to waste time going on and on about the same things but who is actually going in to work at 8/9 and staying till 5pm? Obviously RTO 5 days means working from the office all 5 days but there's no way in he-l the majority is willingly going to go from WFH to now commuting to an office just to sit there for 8 hours.

Curious if anyone’s been getting logged out daily. Thinking it has something to do with tracking for RTO

My hub has reduced trash pickup to 3 days a week, there are heaping piles of trash sticking out of the bins and spilling onto the floor. How about you?

I haven’t left my house since, ya know, the global pandemic that ravaged our world sent us all to WFH. So this new and unexpected RTO has taken a major toll on my anxiety.

My therapist wrote me a note to take to HR, detailing my agoraphobia, unfortunately to no avail. TODAY My manager said that my condition is not a valid excuse to not RTO and I will be expected to be in the office 5 days. I have not stopped crying since we got off our meeting at 4:50. I don’t know what to do.

Should I take this directly to the head of HR? Or the CEO? Any advice is appreciated!

With the new RTO tracking being through IP and not swipes, has anyone heard anything about if changing location from hub to branch would be an option? The excuse used to be that it couldn’t be tracked.