Yes, a new Office First policy will be announced.
No, not every employee will be mandated back to an office.
Yes, employees currently assigned as hybrid office based will be required to work from that office each day. No more 3 day schedule. This will happen over a few months.
Yes, if you are currently a virtual employee (meaning that your HR profile which you can access on Talent Central has you listed as virtual), AND your home address is within 31 miles of an OT office, you will be reassigned as an office employee and will be required to work from your assigned office every day. These employees will be given several months before they have to begin working from the office.
Yes, this applies to ALL employees in the US who live within that distance to an office, other than customer facing sales.
No, employees in countries with council will not immediately have to comply. OT is negotiating with these councils.
29 replies (most recent on top)
@1z4 what is your point?
The "hardies" in this group should organize a carpool pick up within the distances between the office to reduce grid lock. Come up with solutions not comparisons to your days.
Back in the day people used to show up sick to the office, what was the need for a lockdown and WFH? Keep going into the office, take the vaccine, you'll live. Or should we revert back to a vaccine less time? Populations have grown and infrastructure never caught up leading to more gridlock and commuting nightmares. If they really want people to go back to the office, then take away cell phones and laptops, provide a tower and monitor so people have to come in.
It's not the employees fault when executives are responsible for strategic outcomes that fail and lead to profit loss. Let's be honest, the demographic that wants to go back to the office can't stand being at home with their family and spouse. I hope your children/grandchildren cut off your ancestral line in your lifetime because it'll be too expensive for them to carry it on when they can't find work either. That, or i hope you saved a few million for them.
@ga two wrongs don’t make it right.
No, actually, it's possible. I have been using a forwarding address elsewhere in the USA for many years, and also used that on my tax returns. No problems at all.
@fw in the US, this is the address on your W2, so putting in a fake address could cause tax issues.
Can't someone just update their address on Talent Central to more than 30 miles away? Its not like OT verifies or mails you anything (except for a welcome package). Seems like a pretty easy workaround
Don't watch the clock, do what it does. Keep going (and find a new company). Life is too short to be slaves to company you don't enjoy working at.
@dd You sound like a LinkedIn cu-t
The point of the post is to remind you softies that life isn't fair, and a lot of times, it's a total PITA...but in order to be successful in life, you have to resist being mired in a passive, whining victim mode, and instead have a mature attitude of, "Yes this su-ks, but it's a means to an end, and I'm staying focused on my goals of progressing further, so I don't have to deal with so much aggravation in the future."
In other words: DEAL with it!
Also, since you're so enamoured with hearing about my life story, I left out the part about how as my career progressed, I'd gotten married and had kids, so added in to the morning routine/commute, I'd have to first drop the kids off at school in the car (yes, I eventually got one), then drive back home, switch to the motorcycle, which I'd then use to commute downtown to work...with the routine in reverse for after work/after school pickup. Then it was all about making dinner, helping with their homework, getting them off to bed, and spending a few precious hours afterward with my spouse.
As stated previously: grow up and learn how to practice the fine art of adulting.
Have a Nice Day!
@bq yeah Canada/Waterloo is seen as the 'example' - which is why there were spikes of rumored 4-days for them.
If it's not equal - they're getting 6 days somehow.
@br Ever heard of Decisiv Search?
OT laid off the ENTIRE support staff right in the middle of knowledge transfer to the internal OT team tasked with supporting it. Then, that team was tasked with transferring their meager knowledge to India. Then, that internal OT team was laid off.
The decisions are only required to make short-term financial sense, not long-term product development/stability sense.
OT is a scam factory. Always has been.
Cut staff, hurt product, lose customers, raise prices/support fees to cover churn in a camouflage of inflated revenue, stock number go up, ELT happy. That's all there is to this company.
@c6 yeah I think most people agree on that - if you tolerate, like it, or leave over it is varied but good chunk of us can understand why it's on the table.
IMHO this RTO playbook is entirely an attrition strategy and it is also about optics shorter term.
Remember OT is currently courting perspective buyers of 'Non-Core' assets.
So they need the visual of hustle/bustle packed offices....
And yes, diligence teams do conduct clandestine office visits (well a few leaders will know but typically most do not).
RTO was tried at @HP, both during the 'Carly' era and then under Meg Whitman's leadership. Failed miserably both times..but both resulted in shedding a lot of jobs (mostly in the US).
With OT it is also no coincidence that just prior to rolling out the new RTO policy they rolled out the new PIP Seperation policy (So they can terminate you with no severance). These both are desperate moves to turn around this deeply mismanaged company.
@bq they closed a lot of offices though. There are entire product lines worked on by fully remote teams.
@b0 Yes, Canada is included.
@b6 RTO is the canary in the coal mine... And everyone responding is getting dizzy walking in a straight line. The ELT loves this chaos since they want people to leave to cut costs and keep the stock up till someone buys us and all the ELT get huge stock bonuses before they leave.
Is there admins look at sites like this, the get confirmation that their plan is workng... Anyone who thinks they are shocked is truly naive.
Are you heavily invested in commercial real estate? Maybe the direct recipient of a municipal tax break?
No? Then you must be fiending for some fresh fa-t scents to liven up your extended bathroom hangouts.
Otherwise, why are you so wrapped up in where others prefer to work? Your little life story is kinda creepy, tbh.
Just US? What about Canada, UK, etc?
@am How's that boot taste? There's no business justification for wasting time commuting to have the same teams calls with people hundreds of miles away. RTO is just an alternative layoff. if your job benefits from being in the office then great, go to the office, but stop pretending it's good for everyone, you feckless dipsh-t.
The company is too focused on cutting costs to enforce a widely unpopular (and expensive) RTO policy. The danger isn't being forced to commute; it's that "remote" roles in expensive regions are prime targets for being laid off.
The "real problem" with OpenText is that its primary business model—growth by acquisition—has hit a mathematical and operational wall. OpenText is a financial engineering company masquerading as a technology company.
@a7 I bet you had to walk both ways up hill... with no shoes too!
Yeah! Back in my day things were cr-ppy on many levels. So everyone else should also have to deal with crappiness too!
@a7 I recommend drinking a quart of magnesium citrate, because you are so full of sh-t it's affecting your ability to reason.
One of my first "office" jobs, included a commute by bicycle (since at the time, I hadn't gotten a car yet) which took about 45 minutes each way (rain or shine, and often in the mornings, it was pitch black dark outside). This was a cold-calling sales job (fun!) which started at 6:00 am. 5 days a week in-office. Commission only.
I've also since then, worked many office jobs (much better paying, and salaried/more cushy, for sure) while living in the same city where the office was located...but the sh!tty public transit system stretched the commute time to nearly an hour each way, regardless. So instead of commuting comfortably solo in a nice air conditioned/heated car w/ music playing to my liking, I was squished in like sardines with undesireables such as: smelly b-ms and their associated literal plastic garbage baggage, violent dr-g addicts, loud obnoxious aggro tech dudes/gals who would bo-m their lame work calls on speakerphone with heinously bad coffee breath, toe-steppers, molesters, and other assorted miscreants. Again, this was happening twice a day (with an 8:00 am start time at work, so you'd have to be at the bus stop or train station by 7:00 am) 5 days a week, year after year...for DECADES.
I did eventually get a motorcycle, which helped immensely...and my last few jobs were WFH, but again that's after decades of "paying my commuter dues" (in time & money) beforehand. I just did what I had to do, because that's what needed to be done.
Yes, work and its associated commute time most certainly has a way of "greatly destroying work life balance and general quality of life"...that's why they call it, "WORK."
So, make your life outside of work that much more fun, lively, entertaining, whatever it is that makes you happy...because work is work, and the time it takes to get there and back is all just part of the package. And if you abhor the concept/time su*k of commuting THAT much, then get yourself a WFH position with a different company!
Stop whining and start actually adulting.
@a2 Are you stupid? The only justification they need is that you don't have to work only for them, and they want to make doing so bad enough you quit and save them the severance payout.
You are not owed a job. Just leave and start looking elsewhere now before it's too late.
Just start applying for new roles now.
We lost our manager last year in EMEA, solely because they were paid too much.
We we're then laid off in May.
Fu-k this place
They do realize that 30 miles in some areas is still hours of commuting a day, whether by car or public transit? Do they have justification for how this is need or provides benefit given the clear ways people can show how this greatly destroys work life balance and general quality of life? How does this work when the company regularly has meetings at very inconvenient times? Will they still expect you to attend 6 or 7am or 9pm meetings in office?