RTO needs to stay 2-3 in office or at home depending if you are within 30 miles should get more days at home. I know it’s wishful thinking but spending hours of my life to sit in office with no one near me. The other depts don’t even talk to me or have to do with my area. I see no point to be in all my team has exceptions to be home. They need to consider small teams and where everyone resides. All I do is zoom or make calls if we need to meet.
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Tracking is currently number of days badged into a building. HR is dropping the hammer on people who just walk up and swipe and go back to their cars to leave which is easy to see since they never swipe out, only in. There is discipline/firing in cases there. Audit has tracked number of hours in since last year for their org. Current reporting to EMGs gives a percentage of their org meeting minimum requirement (13 days currently) and breakdown to individual level. Badging records time in and out and if people coming in for an hour becomes an issue they care about then I can see it being easily tracked since the data is already there.
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From what I read it was bank branch employees who unionized. They need to be in the branch if there's going to be a branch.
Rumour at Wells Fargo - RTO is a big reason why the employees are forming a Union.
Analysts have been talking about the “tipping point” was being forced back into office 3 days a week. Ironically the push to unionise resulted from wells employees who where now in the office started to complaining about it and decided the way to fight back was to unionise. To quote one of the main advocates “we are sick of lack of having a voice - now we have to be buderned with paying for parking, gas and purchase cars they learned they no longer needed during Covid.. all to be in an office on zoom calls !!
They also learned productivity was as strong if not stronger working from home - usaa Bank employees are far more likely to unionise when there are many disgruntled employees - the anonymous wells union supporter claimed - unions are definitely likely to spread across Banking where employees are suffering the same pains (Excessive RTO) and perceive their benefits to be weak..
Sounds familiar !!
They push for collaboration yet to our customers we are mainly online with minor in person interaction (no branches)
RTO d probably not the most useful line to draw in the same, BUT if you are going to take a position in opposition to the 4-day RTO policy, why take a position as weak as "RTO needs to be 2-3 days"?
Once you start qualifying it with things like considering specific team situations (like teams that are spread across multiple cities and so are always on zoom anyways) you should realize that the only alternative position is "why do we need a unilateral RTO policy at all?" Because a big company POLICY with a bunch of special cases and exceptions is unwieldy - and possibly a liability.
Yes, in many cases there are real benefits to being physically present in the office. But if management believes those benefits have real and measurable impacts on performance, then there is no need for an RTO policy. Employees who are in positions where being in office has a major impact on their performance but don't come in can be managed out based on real measurable performance metrics. You know, because the impact is real. And employees where being remote has no impact, or actually benefits their performance, can be left in peace.
The elephant in the room is of course bigger than USAA. When a bunch of big corporations all announce similar policy changes in almost perfect unison, one has to wonder if there are some anticompetitive shenanigans going on behind the scenes. Our corporate leaders are truly independent thinkers who always prioritize their distribution duties and would never coordinate with competitors in an anticompetitive way. They are far too ethical for that. The spontaneous decision of so many corporations to push for RTO at the same time must have been a grand coincidence, or maybe the right policy decision was just that obvious and uniform - despite the massive problems this policy push has caused for so many companies who did it.
Come to think of it, in the last few years there are quite a few HR policies that have been spontaneously implemented in almost perfect unison across huge swaths of the economy with stunningly anticompetitive effects, and they all seem to be basically implementing whatever a handful of very powerful asset managers want to see. Asset managers who control proxy votes for shares that they are not the beneficial owners of, and who also control capital market access via certain very politicized scorecards.
Hmm, got back from a mini vacation and nothing about a four day rto in emails or anything…
"Noone is safe, tracking is active and is being sent to directors for disciplinary action. You'll be in office or you'll be out of office quick..someone overseas will gladly do your job..we see it shifting daily."
Director here.
While agree with a prior poster that leaving by 8AM is probably intentionally provoking a fight with folks you don't want to have beef with, this statement is factually wrong. I have seen no tracking information and I no of no other directors that have as well. That does not mean it doesn't exist but I really don't think USAA wants to start regulating work hours in this way. For starters it would be ridiculously expensive to put in place a system that fairly and accurately monitors ALL employees and even if they did they would almost surely run into legal problems. All or nothing solutions like that rarely turn out well for companies. For now, USAA has pushed RTO about as far as (IMHO) it's going to go.
I think the people leaving by 8am are playing with fire. Working at an FI requires basic ethical behavior and judgement and it’s taunting leadership and alienating peers. But, maybe that’s where we are as a culture.
Disagree with last comment, recession is no longer a threat! There are plenty people not willing to take 4 day job in the office anymore with so many remote jobs out there!
fwiw, I hope they just start being fair. I have people on my team coming in for 2 hours and then heading home by 8am while others are working the entire day. Would way prefer just 2 or 3 core days per week where everyone had to be there all day; what's the point in collaboration time when most of my team is gone when I get to the office.
Noone is safe, tracking is active and is being sent to directors for disciplinary action. You'll be in office or you'll be out of office quick..someone overseas will gladly do your job..we see it shifting daily.
4 day "hybrid" RTO, what a way to start 2024. It will be filled with micromanagers who will gleefully file reports on the people only showing up for 3 days, which will only increase morale. The only free breakfast tacos will be the ones listed in the geoscraps slack channel, causing more PIPs because of vacant seats.
2024 will be the Year of the Peacuck.
4 days is really overboard and I am actively looking for new opportunities as a result. Our leadership seems all ready to drink the collaboration koolaide so I have little hope it's going to change.
What has burned me the most is the lack of willingness to meet employees halfway or provide any useful communication around the entire debacle.
Be thankful you have employment. There are many who love to have your job and would in to work with no problem.