Along with a myriad of red flag change announcements at the Oct 4th GEM and foreshadowing of more to come, Tibo+Citrix leadership announced they are doing their employees a "huge favor" by demanding employees "return" to an office 5 days a week, period. The "Work from Anywhere" software not being applicable to their employees was re-enforced emphatically. Regardless of people being hired out of territory, regardless of people who were given permission to relocate during the pandemic, regardless of remote positions in place prior to the pandemic, Citrix is now demanding the mass majority of those people to uproot their lives and families to move near a specified office for a 5 day in office work week. The fact that poor leadership the last few years set up the company for failure, they are blaming employees "being remote" for the failure of the last several years. - Scapegoating at it's finest. - With this economy, housing costs, interest rates, etc, Citrix leadership is unconcerned with the financial impact to employees being forced to uproot their lives. It seems to be either extremely short sighted for leadership to enforce a policy that will have such a personal impact on the lives and families of their employees or it is a well thought out plan to get people to leave on their own so layoffs won't be as big in Q4 and Q1. - Don't get me started on the "modifications" and highly questionable changes and all the headaches to come for those who stick around. And how about the dangerous message it sends to customers? "Buy our product so your organization can work from anywhere, but if you do, your company will fail and you'll need to bring everyone back to the office like it's 1995." Meanwhile, our competitors are successful with not only selling remote work products to customers, but successful in having a remote work force, many having a 100% remote workforce, aka "the new norm". Loyalty is great but only when their is reciprocation. The blows just keep coming down on Citrites who stuck around through all the rough times and all the corresponding attrition. Luckily for those employees, the industry is hiring. It's time for everyone to let go of the memory of the good old days and do what is best for themselves and their families. If it's not apparent, I myself am throwing in my hat. It's a sad day but my actual family comes first. So long pals! See you on the other side.
19 replies (most recent on top)
The other day I saw a tweet where citrix touted being on the "best place to work". What a sick joke. Don't trust the that list. It's clear they are pushing people to leave. Management doesn't care about you period. Unfortunately that's true in many places where they tout "we care about our employees" ok rant over
I am a 100% remote employee, have been for years. My expectation after speaking with several leaders is that will continue. I think folks are over rotating on the message. For those of you in south Florida, Raleigh, bay area etc yeah you are gonna be in the office more until the dust settles. But flexible working isn't off the table either like you are all crowing about, he even mentioned in the GEM we all get that 'life happens'. FFS just talk to your manager (assuming you have a good one, lol).
@ydx+1j2iqICy I have been at MOST hybrid (stressing on mostly remote) for the last 10+ years. I "collaborate" with people all over the planet, daily and am instrumental in keeping my product line running. And I do that mostly remotely (and always have).
It’s at will employment. Either suck it up and carry on or find another gig.
If you stay an moan that means you’re worthless.
Re: "You might think its a weak argument but it is not... going back to the office is nothing new... The same logic you used on your reply, can be used on the opposite... Just because we have a pandemic doesnt mean that we have to work from home or remote forever..."
"back" ... "return" ... 20+ years and I've NEVER been anything but a hybrid/remote worker. What does the pandemic have to do with it?
TK said it himself. He doesn't know how to do his job remote. Rather than figure it out, it's easier for him to tell us all to come to the office. Just... don't hold your breath waiting for him to show up.
I'm fully on board with getting things back to how they were before the pandemic. This is not that.
Definitely just aiming for attrition.
No soul or sense of company ambition other than profit. Nobody I respect would listen to a GEM like that and think it’s a company they’d want to work for.
It appears that the Sales teams will stay remote. All other roles, whether they were remote before the pandemic or not, are under review. That is what I got from the messaging.
Citrix's sales teams have always worked remote. Any changes there?
There are many employees who were hired remotely pre-pandemic and have worked at Citrix successfully. And, there are employees that were given permission by their senior leaders to move and officially work remotely.
For the below poster, to be so snide and righteous and to have such little understanding of the impact to these people and the commitments that were made by senior leadership and that they just need to "get over it" shows that you will fit perfectly in the new org.
@mpg+1j2iqICy You're wrong. We are not complaining about pre-pandemic levels, or at least, not all of us are. Some of us were hired here WELL before COVID. As in years before COVID was even heard of. Why do those people need to uproot their lives when their roles were remote for years before the pandemic? That is what most of the animosity is about. Those that were in office pre-pandemic? I get it.
But now we want to impact people that have been remote for 5,6,7 years? That is unacceptable.
TK, what are you doing here?
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@bwr+1j2iqICy You might think its a weak argument but it is not... going back to the office is nothing new... The same logic you used on your reply, can be used on the opposite... Just because we have a pandemic doesnt mean that we have to work from home or remote forever... employees need to adjust to the need of the business and if they cannot or are not willing to , you have options.. but stop crying because you were asked to do the same thing you were doing 2-3 years ago.
@ydx+1j2iqICy (pro-RTO troll below): Just because it was that way before the pandemic, doesn't mean we should go back to that now. Tired of hearing that weak argument. Full time on-site didn't make sense before the pandemic either. It makes less sense now.
Krause has been tasked with cutting costs (that's you) quickly while preparing to strip-mine the installed base of customers by raising prices to rapidly improve profitability.
The RTO mandate will accelerate any remaining voluntary employee departures. That's his charter. Take it, or leave it. Either get with the program or leave - you have a choice!
Good luck “networking” over “zoom”
So is TK really asking people who were remote before the pandemic to work from the office? That's a big change. I don't think that was clear. But for those who were working from the office- come on down!
The horror of 4 mini Tk's.
i dont understand what is the problem with this. This is exactly how everything worked before the pandemic and no body complained then... We all knew that being remote or working from home was not something in perpetual and the fact that Citrix slogan was to work from anywhere doenst mean that his employees are entitled to be away from the office at all times. It depends on the business, some see benefits of having people work remotely as they dont have to spend money maintaining facilities, but some other see value on having people working together, increasing team collaboration, getting people together before the pandemic... I think all this complaining is because they just dont want to go back to the office at all not willing to give away the comfort of their homes... This is how society exited before the pandemic and nothing happened and now it will continue to do so and nothing will happen..
I agree with this post 1000%. I understand the desire to want to get back to pre-pandemic office levels but there are so many of us that were hired well before the pandemic, as in years before, that were hired remote and may now be forced to go to an office? Our jobs were remote before DH intentionally tanked the stock for a buyout. Why all of a sudden are we re-classifying roles from remote to an office years after those employees were hired?
The only logical conclusion is that he is intentionally trying to increase attrition in order to save money on severance. There are so many other companies hiring 100% remote roles.
For most of us, we are hundreds of miles away from other team members. Therefore we will be "collaborating" over Zoom from an office. How does that help? We are all still remote from each other, just instead of at home, we are in a random hotel station in some office somewhere.
Time to start exploring those other companies that believe in remote and work life balance.
TK: "I am married with a family of 4 and I come to an office."
Sure, and you make millions to afford nannies and whatever else. The rest of us aren't that lucky.