Nothing increases my productivity like sitting 2 inches from someone eating bags of chips all day smacking their lips like its their last meal on Earth, another cutting their fingernails and electric shaving like the disgusting pig they are, another coughing up a lung every few minutes, and the office loudie across the aisle cackling with laughter the whole day from god knows what.
Who wouldnt be more productive in this environment? *Sarcasm.
Many L3 and 4 work in drop in cubes not offices. My first few weeks was a big adjustment for things like when a direct report called with an employee issue or some confidential discussion. Hearing everyone around on the phone is disturbing for all employees. We weren't given a choice of office or cube and it is stupid nor were we given options on where our employees work from. L5 is where it starts with getting offices
"They should be honest and say we need the commercial real estate market not to crash."
I think the ship has sailed on that one. Depending on the elasticity of demand, a 10% decrease in occupancy can fuel a 30% or more decline in rents.
I suspect that these hub cities are where the real estate is AT&T owned - they would be lucky to sell it for 50¢ on the dollar, and since they're stuck with the real estate, they're going to use it. That's what I think the honest answer is.
Didn't they just blow a whole lot of money constructing a new headquarters in Dallas?
The RTO plan from Stankey was poorly thought out. He has failed over and over at his jobs in AT&T. He learned nothing from his business classes at UCLA and is plain stupid thinking that intimidation gets results. DTV, TWX and T-Mobile were all colossal failures and dollar losses. This RTO will only hurt productivity. The good will leave and only the bad will be left behind. T_mobile is leaving us in the dirt: John Legere and Mike Sievert were both former employees of AT&T companies, yet we kept Stephenson and Stankey with their in depth and outdated landline type strategies of growing the business by cutting costs and ignoring revenue growth.
"It’s time to move on from this"
There will be no moving on. We used to manage the exit process very decently and part of the stated rationale was that "an ex-employee is still a customer".
What Stankey is doing now is creating ten thousand new anti-AT&T zealots and none of them is ever going to stop slamming this company until the end of its days or theirs.
I know because I will be one.
Let's face it, we all know what a horrible company it is - security policies that are in name only, no funding for software currency. The WhatsApp commercial with the pigeons sensitive carrying messages - that is basically AT&T!
So we don't even have to lie to poison the well for AT&T, just be honest.
Cubicles are a luxury most don’t have. At this point I think we will be double and tripled up at all the open office drop in locations. Lord help us. You’ll definitely be collaborating siting almost on top of each other if you can even find a chair. They really didn’t think this through after closing down many office building and floors over the past few years.
“Cubicles? Where will folks be getting cubicles?”
With all the layoffs we have hundreds of empty cubicles. GRE will tell you no but just pick one and move in anyways. It’ll be years before they notice.
I think people are misunderstanding his/her point. For leadership to claim RTO is to increase productivity is a fallacy. They should be honest and say we need the commercial real estate market not to crash. We need our tax benefits from workers being in an office the majority of the time, NOT because of trust or productivity. Comfortable quiet environment vs loud annoying distracting environment. They're playing us for fools OPs point.
I’m sitting right now in Dallas and next to several L3s and L4s (as I have seen since way before Covid). I see a couple of VPs who are in glass offices, but typically always have their door open and walk in/out for conversations with their teams. Your complaint doesn’t stand at least in HQ as this is the norm.
"So when you took the job pre-COVID, you either overlooked all these things or didn't care about them. Now that you worked from home they are upsetting?"
Don't know about the OP, but I was a TW designation for many years at AT&T prior to COVID. I never skipped a beat when offices started shutting down. In this One-Size-Fits-All mentality, they send everyone back to the office without consideration of the results people are producing. I would have zero issues if bringing me back into the office resulted in greater productivity.
Cubicles? Where will folks be getting cubicles?
sign in one of the offices restroom - actual spelling:
it is ABSOLUTLEY UNACEPTABLE to leave FE*CES on the toilet seats. Please have the comon decentcy to clean up after yourself.
Note the operative word was spelled correctly.
You overestimate the power of L3-L4. They are in the same boat as everyone else. We will be shoulder to shoulder with everyone else in the shared work spaces.
"This is what's wrong with society. YOU. Entitlement."
That's a bit overblown. There are some who also thing AT&T should be providing health benefits, and would similarly complain if those benefits were withdrawn.
I see both work at home and health insurance as benefits that a company can choose to offer in order to make work there more attractive. And a small mention in the amount of pay is in order.
In some cases, work at home can result in being able to pay workers less. It all boils down to being a math question.
The fact is that pre-covid outside of Dallas and maybe other major offices, many people worked from home nearly full-time, and would only go into the office if they had technical issues at home, needed PC repair or lease roll, or there was some major C-Suite celebrity gracing us with their presence. I know because I actually worked in an office(cubicle) 95% of the time and liked working in the office. When I worked at home, I had no concept of time or boundaries and was always checking things in the off hours. Many days on end, I was the only one there on the floor in the big tower in STL. The good thing about open seating collaboration spaces is that people can no longer sleep at their desks(this was not uncommon for cubicle dwellers), and they have to be more creative about how to look busy.
Pro-Tip - I recommend people putting in headphones (Music optional) and acting like you are always on calls - it drowns out the annoying noise a bit and keeps unwanted co-workers from coming up to you in an attempt to collaborate.
Don't you mean it is time to move "HR_Soecialist" I would say that is a typo, but I'm pretty sure it isn't.
So when you took the job pre-COVID, you either overlooked all these things or didn't care about them. Now that you worked from home they are upsetting? Or are you lazy and don't want to go back to the office? Field techs work in the ran, snow, deal with wild animals, bug-infested homes/buildings... but you don't want to hear someone eat chips so you should get to work from home? Totally logical. This is what's wrong with society. YOU. Entitlement. Tell it to the 8 year old working in a mine in Africa. I'm sure they will agree how hard you have it. Jesus Christ- wonder why AT&T is reducing workforce.
It’s time to move on from this
In Dallas (not sure about Atlanta), there are no cubicles. It's all open space and it is 10X worse than a cubicle in that regard. People monopolize the huddle rooms all day so if you are a manager, and need to have a conversation on a sensitive topic with a direct report, it can be very difficult to do. There was quite a bit of office space in Dallas available in the 211 building when most worked in 208 and some AVPs moved into offices, but if many people relocate, my guess is that no one below VP will have a closed door office and probably no one below L3 will be able to secure a parking space in the company garage.