Is there a single person here who actually worked less from home? I know that's not true for me. I'm basically available throughout the entire day. I respond to emails, jump on quick calls, handle tasks immediately, all while at home. At the office, it's in, out, and then private life takes over. That urgent mail at 6 p.m. can wait until tomorrow or Monday. I don't understand why they think more RTO will improve anything when the opposite is true.
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I don't see why you have to be in the office 4 days. Why some can telecommute while others can't make no sense. I'm close to retirement and they just gave me incentive to do it earlier.
@c9 yes all grades are affected. The email only went out to grade 32 giving them a heads up before the general announcement.
It's all to see how much resignations they can get and maybe consolidate real estate. All cost cutting. Losing more than half your value will do that to dogsheet execs. and their budgets.
Translation on the RTO for MN and DC hybrid workers. The localities need the warm bodies for foot traffic to spend money near the office leases since tax revenue has declined. If something not done Optum will lose the tax breaks on the real estate since they promised foot traffic in the area.
@c8 I'd like to see your contractors from India even send an email without having to consult with a US employee in a call guiding them throughout the entire process.
@c7 I thought all hybrid ee get this, not restricted by level. If anyone could share the email, that would be great.
You are more productive with your personal stuff. Just because you log on at 7am and send 1 email then take a 2 hour break and come back at 9 doesn’t make you a more productive worker.
Grade 32 and above got an email about RTO. I assume that is why this is being posted now.
Starting in July, hybrid workers in Minnesota and DC will be required to go to the office 4 days per week. The email said this was because we needed to be more productive and this is a pivotal moment in the companies history (probably related to their massive stock drop). It said they will be evaluating more locations for RTO soon.
It mentioned people designated as full time telecommuters are not impacted but who knows how long that will last.
No, I work more from home. As a manager it is my job to foster a collaborative work from home environment with my teams. If I notice people’s productivity slipping, I talk with them about the issue. If it continues corrective action happens.
I don’t know what the obsession is with needing to go to an office for greater accountability. If your manager can’t see identify and correct unproductive employees that is a failure on them.
Also, 80% of my team and customers are in different cities or countries. I’d still have to get on the phone with them for meetings. That is a consequence of Optum’s 60% offshore policy and 30% contractor policy. Leadership dug their own graves with their poor decisions and now they think remote work is the reason their stock dropped. Give me a break…
Haven’t heard a peep about RTO.
Nobody I work with on a regular basis lives within 1000 miles, so mandated RTO means I'd be driving at least 4 hours a week in order to work with strangers in a noisy environment. There's absolutely no justification! It would make just as much sense to mandate that all employees wear nose rings and perform cartwheels instead of walking. But if Big Brother can use this to achieve at least a 5% workforce reduction without the expense of an early retirement buyout, maybe the loss of productivity will be worth it.
Everyone that was good I knew got even better at their jobs when we started working from home.
There's teams that don't respond to a god damn thing and are completely abhorrent to work with, but since they're not even in my state, it's not like being in an office would fix their response time of between 2 weeks or never.
But yeah, working from home? I'm watching some show, something comes to me, and I can fix some code at 9pm. I'm fine and dandy with that, because working from home also saves me the commute, saves me the time of making myself presentable for work, and removes any worry I have that my place is being broken into or a package could get stolen.
And if I need to speak to someone on a team I can just message them or hop in a call. Why do I need to go to the office when everyone is in another fu--ing state or in India?