Word on the street is that the additional "guidance" on RTO that Wayne promised two weeks ago is coming out sometime today. And it likely won't be pretty. Mentally prepare yourself.
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One staff meeting this morning said if remote before April 2021 or outside of 60 miles, should remain remote. All others will move to hybrid. And hybrid to start going in office 4 times a week in January 2024.
Following post 2owh+1mfEwpUD, for example:
AML consent order is not closed, IMO not nearly closed. Just about ALL of AML QA and QC are remote and outside the 60 miles. The consent order required both a quality program be created AND third party not be utilized. They can't force out their several hundred Quality personnel and replace with third party, and they also can't not have a Quality program.
Wake up to the bad news, folks, bad news!
I absolutely 100% expect them to require those outside 60 miles and remote to file exceptions, but are we actually sure they're going to play hardball with them? Most remotes in that situation have been hired the past couple years in direct correlation with regulator requirements that have not yet been completed by the bank. I would think the folks in those orgs would be considered "mission critical," and therefore logically would be given the exemption. Whether or not the top will try and get rid of them somehow AFTER the regulatory issues are closed is a different issue.
@2gem+1mfEwpUD Because Wayne and Tamla said so, that's why. You can thank being an at-will employee for that.
"I am altering the deal. Pray I do not alter it any further." —Wayne
What I do not understand is - If I live 100+ miles from an office (hired into USAA as a remote employee non-contact, classified as remote) why would I have to fill out an exception? Thanks in advance.
I don't know how they think they can do this with consent order related hires in the last few years. The orders ain't done yet, and most of the related hires were remote outside hubs. Unless those roles are getting exceptions.
It’s dishonest to hire someone, make promises about expectations, and then change things later because of their distance from a hub. Why does location matter? They were hired with no expectation to fill a seat in the office so why would they be included in an in-person headcount now? This company doesn’t pay as well as others for certain roles. Having a remote option was a selling point that partially made up for that. It was a deciding factor for some to take a position at this company over other offers.
How very disappointing if they “deal with promises made” by going back on them. Doing this will lead to an erosion of trust, breed a group of disgruntled employees, and create a drop in service/member satisfaction. It would be a big hit to the ‘honesty and integrity’ department.
Will they target remote employees in locations that don’t have a hub by giving them an ultimatum to move or be let go in x amount of months? Seems to follow the same logic. With the fear of more layoffs looming, that would be an unacceptable risk for many.
Please read the allowable exceptions carefully. To recap:
Financial burden
Military spouse
Supporting family member and have approved FMLA
JARs
No severance. You will have the opportunity to communicate to your leader of your intent to relocate yourself to an acceptable radius. It will be up to your leader to accept / deny your timeline of your relocation.
Hybrid employees partially impacted.
It is the currently remote employees (unless covered by accommodations, military spouse, certain exceptions, or very narrow hire dates (think hire, job changes, promotions)) that will be heavily impacted.
Hybrid employees; just be there for your peers. Be grateful & supportive of our peers and leaders in these next few weeks.
Post from TheLayoff.com
Having read the EMG guidance & the drafted guidance for Leaders to be released on Tuesday, 4 of those are crazy close 😬
@1nem+1mfEwpUD that actually jives with what we heard in my area of ERC over a month ago from our enterprise head (related to those of us more than 60 miles out getting an exception, that is). We were also told the exception would be granted. Hopefully nothing in that calculation has changed due to top pressure.
So if a person was hired as remote (way before pandemic) and their job gets reclassified to hybrid and it is not feasible for that person to go to the office (hundreds of miles away), will severance be offered? Or will they tell us we either move ourselves to that location by the deadline or we can quit?
Yes, what I'm hearing is you'll have to file for an exception. No way to know what they are considering for approval on those.
From what folks have been saying they're hearing on this new guidance- any word on those hired as WFH, much more than 60 miles outside hubs?
@1ajv+1mfEwpUD - I've heard the exact same thing. From the sounds of things it'll be a top-down one-size-fits-all approach. This will achieve a few things for upper management:
- Reduced head count because they know people are willing to leave over this
- Justification for what they're spending on building upkeep
- Improved "visibility" (aka micromanagement) into what employees are doing
Beyond that, it's basically a power play. It's not about culture, it's not about those hallway conversations, and it's not about "the members." Work has been getting done just fine for the last 3 years, and in fact most of our regulatory issues were closed during the pandemic.
Now that the regulatory issues are improving, Wayne has to clean house and reduce staff. This is yet another lever he can pull in addition to more layoffs (definitely coming this year) and the benefit reductions we've seen.
Come Jan '24 hybrid will mean four days in person [enforced]. EMG is already there. Unfortunate our teammates have not been showing up as asked since we know the c-suite is metrics driven. The flexibility was nice while it lasted. I anticipate the hard transition to three days later this year [enforced]. According to Slack - details will come out start of May on Connect. It's time to start making my childcare arrangements for the extra days. Sigh.
Hearing that this is going to effect more than just the remote workers. Currently, there are hybrid employees not doing 3 days a week and that will be part of this communication too - mandatory 3 days for ALL hybrid. We do have some member contact employees that volunteered for hybrid and only had to commit to 1 day. That will change to 3. Also hearing an increase in management requirements to 4 days in office. As well as more guidance, of course, around those that are full-time remote now. Exceptions will need to be approved.
I had to jump on for some OT, and scoured the slack channels. No useful information in there.
Last convo I had with an anonymous VP stated only a portion of us would be hybrid. The rest could remain remote.
I understand the concern with RTO, but realistically, I highly doubt there will be a 100% get your a-s to an office mandate.
Correct, yesterday in the bank town hall, Paul Vincent basically said they’re counting on people to quit due to the RTO mandates and not looking to hire for those employees lost. I’m not EMG, just a basic employee, but can pretty much guarantee we’re going back to 5 days in office come 2024, they’ll probably make that announcement at the August employee meeting. Which means, people will be coming to work sick, and spreading it around, much like it was pre Covid.
A “leak” would be nice about now. Way to go into yet another weekend with the stress of uncertainty.
I’m driving myself crazy with anxiety thinking I’m going to be laid off for being remote (not anywhere near a hub). Are we finding out the plan for all remote positions next week or only those remote people within 60 miles of an office?
In Bank Town Hall it was said the remaining numbers to trim were expected to be through attrition. I’d not be shocked if something rough hits for RTO; it’s all part of their plan.
There’s a post from an EMG in corporate communications in #waynes-world. Encourage you to look at it. Basically EMG found out the guidance today. Managers and directors will find out on Tuesday. The rest of us plebeians will find out on May 1/2.
What about individuals 100 miles+ from the nearest office?
Sorry, I do not understand "EMG received notice..." Please more detail. :)
If Rto for USAA mandated for everyone. We should cancel our policy and pull all of our accounts as a way to demonstrate!
EMG received notice today apparently, all other people leaders on the 25. Everyone else the 1 or 2
On the edge of my seat as I type this. Waiting ... waiting ... patiently waiting ...
My guess is that if they announce it today, it will happen around 3-4pm. Just in time to ensure everyone sees it before heading home for the day so it can ruin their weekend.
Par for the course for Wayne and company.
Can’t wait to see the debated-by-committees HR verbiage. We need a bingo card.
- After reviewing guidance…
- In support of our mission…
- Our culture…
- Studies [funded by entities with a vested interest in getting you in the office] have shown that working together in person…
- We are here to support you…
- More guidance to come
I didn’t say it isn’t going to happen, nor did I say that Directors/Managers know everything. I just said it would come as a shock.
There was no update yesterday but today it sounds like there might be. You might be surprised to find out that Directors aren't as "in the know" on these type of topics as others. This stuff comes from TOP to HR and then to the masses at once.
This would come as a shock considering Directors and Managers received direct communication yesterday that there’s no update.