Wanted to start a wholly encompassing thread for FOW, starting with discussing the 11/15/23 update. Does it seem like they've reduced the overall expectation for employees to be in the office? I swear I heard in an earlier update that the goal was to have most employees working hybrid by the end of Phase 2, and now it's a 50/50 split. Is it because RTO has been such a failure and they're planning on reducing their real estate footprint?
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RTO seems to be a failure in some locations. When the maps came out, I counted assigned seats at my location to be over 600. Looking around, I'm not seeing evidence of 600 folks showing up (even on Wednesdays). Cafeteria not very busy at noon. Plenty of parking available even around 9am.
We were told they are now looking at badge metrics and "other things" to determine non-compliance. We were not told direct consequences but were more or less told "don't let this be the reason for future problems." Three teammates were called out by name for RTO non-compliance during a recent staff meeting.
Management also implied the goal is to increase the in-office attendance requirement to higher than 50 percent/per week over the next few years.
I'm a contractor and today they asked that the contractors that are near office to attend.
I went from Interim remote office aligned (March 24) to Interim remote office aligned (no due date). I suspect the office I am assigned is at full capacity so I hope I get to stay remote for a long time.
Still remote as of now, but I was informed today that I'll be expected back in office, starting March 2024.
Is there anyone who is WFH company office aligned that's been forced back into the office? Or are you still remote?
FOW was sold as a Majority of employees returning to the office (we are all in this together vibes!) Meanwhile, this was not the case. The reality is: Minority group of employees were forced to return and our peers will likely never return to offices. Oh and now we have the 'reports': the fun phase begins as we collect the data- not the feedback- but the data aka badge swipes and IP address locations. It feels like the office bound employees are being punished and treated as second class while the Majority work from home population still enjoys the real and tanglible benefits wfh allows: work life balance! Carpool the kids freely, not coming home to darkness (very depressing), exercising during lunch breaks, taking the pets for a stroll to relax, not worrying about paying extra money to care for pets, childcare, gas. Basically having more room for Vitality! Are they shocked the Hotel Cubes are still collecting dusk?
Main cause in slowdown is the underestimated the cost to RTW. Tons of money to get the support and infrastructure back up to where it was pre-pandemic. With all the money issues with Cigna, it's being scaled back (for now).
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/newsletters/2023-02-21/tax-breaks-threaten-work-from-home-as-ceo-s-get-return-to-office-incentives
https://www.bisnow.com/national/news/economic-development/resistance-to-return-to-office-may-cost-office-real-estate-its-cash-incentives-115690
I can’t find the exact articles I read earlier this year, but here are a couple that reference some tax breaks for keeping businesses in cities. Essentially, there is some financial gain to get folks to RTO.
Post from TheLayoff.com
"Why am I absorbing the cost, frustration and inconvenience of commuting when my same band level peer lives further away and can work in her pajamas, keep flexibility and make the same money?"
Commenting on the above - I would take that a step further by asking why am I absorbing the cost, etc when the same band level peer lives CLOSER to the office and is able to work in her pj's etc. Besides the fact we were both hired 9+ years ago as WORK FROM HOME employees.
Town hall talks said 11k employees would be RTO this Fall with a future vision of 50/50. So, many phases. Also the timing of this conveniently coincided with many other big companies implementing RTO efforts and there was a rumor about peer CEO pressure to do this. The job market was too hot for their liking and was enabled by remote work. Companies like Cigna simply couldn’t compete for hot tech and leadership talent anymore so that’s incentive to go along with this nonsense instead of making it a very attractive place to work they could just make it impossible for people to jump elsewhere by limiting them geographically. Then there’s the pressure from local governments because of the downturn of service related businesses and therefore less tax revenue from those near big corporate offices that become empty. So our CEOs are cowardly when confronted by their peers and politicians and are ruled by the almighty wallet. No surprises there.
7K people will be back in the office or something like that. If they are saying half the employees will be working in the office then how do we have 70,000 employees?
Why am I absorbing the cost, frustration and inconvenience of commuting when my same band level peer lives further away and can work in her pajamas, keep flexibility and make the same money?
"What I’ve never seen mentioned on these threads, although I will admit maybe I’ve missed it, is around the time the discussion of FOW ensued, there were many articles discussing government incentives and kick-backs for bringing the workforce back into cities because the cities were dying and many business were lost..."
Could you please send example articles about this to read? Interesting....
Any chance those of us that are currently designated in office might be given the opportunity to be back to work from home? Especially in those offices that don’t have extra space?
What I’ve never seen mentioned on these threads, although I will admit maybe I’ve missed it, is around the time the discussion of FOW ensued, there were many articles discussing government incentives and kick-backs for bringing the workforce back into cities because the cities were dying and many business were lost. The incentives were for those companies who would agree to bring back at least half of their workforce to offices and no WFH. Does anyone else think that may be part of the reason this was instituted?
A. The severance policy--dated IMMEDIATELY PRIOR to 10/12 layoffs--has addendum specifically addressing FOW/Return to office)
B. When the FOW edict came down in early 2023, it was the first step in reducing the number of employees without paying severance (associates leave because the return to office was too disruptive to their work/life balance), because at that time, it:
- seemed extremely arbitrary
- was not backed up with examples of how we were not collaborating successfully as remote
- was not understood/supported by mid-management (they were baffled by it as well)
- Not enough associates left voluntarily due to FOW which meant sizeable layoffs in 2023 (and others planned for 2024?)
- Late 2023--Cigna takes back their hard stance on return to office since it accomplished its goal--reducing expenses (salaries) by layoffs/reduction in force
My personal summary on future of work:
Cigna Early 2023 - We want most employees in the office "to better serve our our customers and foster collaboration". Only a select few will be allowed to work from home.
Cigna employees - stressed out by new policy, several decide to leave while others get laid off.
Cigna Late 2023 - We want about half of employees in the office, the remaining will work from home. However many remote employees will be aligned to an office indefinitely with the threat of being forced into the office in the future.
Cigna employees - Confused by welcomed shift and VERY suspicious about whats next.
FOW was an artificially created requirement with the goal to cause as much employee stress as possible to get as many employees to voluntarily leave the company to cut cost. Now that they have completed Phase 1 and layoffs for the year, Phase 2 expectations are less "frightening". The reality is that they where never really going to require most employees to be in the office in the 1st place. I feel like Cigna will continue to use FOW as a tactic to get people to leave and follow up with layoffs when not enough employees voluntarily leave.
Phase 2 is all over the place. Some people are going back into the office, but most won't. Looks like they now have some extra space leftover from phase 1. So that means either they didn't do a good job planing in Phase 1 or it did have the desired effect and caused several employees to leave creating extra open spots. Overall many employees will have a dark cloud looming over their head indefinitely as many will be aligned to an office while continuing to work from home. If a space opens up in the future at their designated office, they may be chosen to go into the office.
It could have something to do with them looking into selling the Medicare business.
I was surprised by the numbers but also very confused. So only 30% of the company is going to be forced back to office, and only for 50% of the time?
It seems like if your designated office isn't on the list of Phase 2 offices they showed in the video, then you don't have to worry about RTO in March. I have no idea what this means for me (im designated as "In Person Office Aligned Interim Work From Home") and the office that they would likely assign me to is not on that list so I'm hoping it means I get to stay remote long after March.