Gone are the days of a rep staying on the phone past quitting time or taking a short lunch to help a customer. Gone too are the days of getting up early or staying late for out of time zone meetings. And goodbye going the extra mile because you feel your company trusts you and respects your time, talent, and dedication. Nope! The clock will now dictate the level of service and quality of products and accuracy of information our customers receive. If Elevance thinks they are going to be able to sustain quality products and services for our customers while their associates are sitting in traffic, struggling to create quality work in a chaotic (NOT collaborative) environment—NOT A TEAM MEMBER IN SIGHT! — and dealing with the totally unnecessary added stress and time su-k of a day, then they are truly as short-sighted, backwards, out of touch and ignorant as I’ve always suspected they could be. Sure other companies are implementing RTO- many who were only remote due to COVID and had established teams and a structure that was easier to step back into. As a company that was helped built and maintained by remote associates — very successfully I might add—- this ridiculous RTO (move the letters and you have ROT) is not only counter to the “for the health of humanity” cr-p this company touts it’s a reflection of leadership ineptitude at its highest. My apologies to our customers who do have the power to take this devourer of souls out of the picture. This RTO mandate will have dire systemic consequences on our customers. Elevance has about as much care and respect for their customers as it has with its associates.
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If they'll let you be remote, that means you can be replaced by offshore - in their minds. Be careful there.
They're looking for corporate generalists who can be moved across their chess board to whatever job they need or area is on fire. They're building an actual talent pool. They will upskill the sh-t out of anyone not rifed and those identified for leader development. They're doing this so everyone has a similar skillset and anyone can do anyone's job because it's all supported by AI anyway.
They're going to find out that AI can't do everything and people can't be shifted into new roles against their will without losing considerable months to unproductivity and demotivation.
Using forced family fun in the office means we should know new people. People who we don't work with now but could possibly when they've determined everyone's career path for them. It's to reduce the storming (getting to know you/butting heads) phase when teams form.
Unfortunately for them, we're more likely to bond over what we don't like. Group think works both ways, geniuses.
Here are some problems I'd like to bring to your attention:
- ) It's not just about 30 extra minutes in the office. It's about 8 hours of decreased productivity from all of the people taking phone calls and distracting us. I've tried noise cancelling headphones and it's sometimes not enough to drown out the chatting. I'm not going to be risking ruining my hearing either by having to wear those headphones every day.
- ) The end goal is 5 days a week. Bonuses are diminished, and now we're going to have to spend more on gas and car maintenance. With inflation being a huge problem, a lot of us are already having to scrape by and now some of us are going to be in a less-than-ideal financial situation. I would ask that you consider this to be a return on investment issue.
- ) The company is reducing staffing levels, and this is an additional time drain on all of us and deadlines that help us stay profitable will be more likely than not missed.
- ) Those of us who have invested in our careers and been promoted are going to be leaving the company. It's frustrating to see that entry level employees who work in customer service roles are given the perk of being able to work from home, while those of us who continued our education are being treated as if we cannot be trusted and need hand holding.
I think the end result of this will be that the company loses the full-time employees it hoped to keep, and they'll be replaced with contractors who unfortunately are just not experienced enough with institutional knowledge to succeed at this time.
I hope this doesn't come off as jumping down your throat. I think it's a teachable moment, and I want to be as polite as possible sharing my perspective.
“Bless your heart”. You must be from one of the southern offices.
To @bb+1jt8nexha how exactly do you get RTO equating to only 30 extra minutes of work? Do you have a company paid apartment at an Elevance pulse point?! Otherwise you’re delusional. RTO is adding a minimum a three extra hours to my day. Three nonsensical unproductive hours. Imagine having a job that requires 1000% heads down concentration in a room filled with phone reps. And the notion of having to put on headsets and damage my hearing for eight hours to block out noise— how is that actually conducive to this collaboration bull($&) dream that “leadership” is feeding people?! Trying to find a pocket of solace at an Elevance pulse point to be productive is like making a trek through Mordor. It actually becomes a quest. and it’s not that people don’t want to give an extra 30 minutes but they have to pick up their child from daycare. Are we really expecting people to choose?? Are are we actually going to see any metrics that people are more productive wasting hours of their day as opposed to having the intelligence of economy of time and respect and trust from their company to go the extra mile and be able to fulfill their lives in a way that matters to them ? Nope we will never see those metrics because if they do run them, it will be clear. RTO is moving backwards and not helping anybody whatsoever except for the executives and shareholders who depend on the rules of tax shelters and and the smoke and mirrors appearance of community involvement to line their pockets with basically the skin of the people actually keeping the sinking ship afloat. 30 extra minutes? Bless your heart.
To the id--t who thinks RTO is about evolving. Are you daft!? How exactly is more time commuting, struggling to work effectively and adding 2 or more hours of unproductive time each day evolution??? If anything it’s regression and moving backwards away from progress.
I love the people saying this isn’t the right thing for our members to be bi--hing about the company evolving, and we need to evolve with it. Like denying claims that we should pay, putting grievance and appeals through AI, increasing premiums and deductibles all while making record profit, And then trying to deny anesthesia for members… That’s all the right thing for the members? Someone is either part of the problem and making these decisions posting or you’ve totally drunk the Kool-Aid. It’s never about the members. Always about the shareholders. And most of our executives are the shareholders.
Maybe the company is evolving and we need to evolve with it. If we actually do really care about our members than that should be our focus... and 30 mins of extra work in the office if I need to help someone isn’t worth bi--hing about IMO.
They're gonna see a drop in productivity from me. I'm not staying on a second longer than my required time anymore. This bs RTO full day is gonna add an hour minimum onto my travel time easily. Not to mention if they make it minimum 3 days in office for everyone, have fun finding a desk to have monitors and a proper setup. I used to give a extra hour a day easily, now I'm down to 30, now it's gonna be exactly 8 hrs of work.
Agreed. I have no problem working an extra half hour from home to finish something up. If I have to go in 3x/week between 8 and 5 they will get not one extra minute of work from me. It’s ridiculous. If managers can’t tell who is getting work done and who isn’t then they are inept.
You're not wrong.... and I've been touting many of the points you illustrated, wondering now when they'll extend to lower level folks as well.
I agree especially since we don't have dedicated desk.