Thanks, Charlie!
21 replies (most recent on top)
It is a misconception that changes in WFH have anything to do with employee behaviors. It is part of Charlie’s playbook when he comes into a company. He doesn’t like WFH and it’s a significant way he can exert powerful and tangible control over the entire workforce very quickly. This is Charlie letting everyone know that he is in control now, and if you don’t like it, you can leave. All of this bickering back and forth between people about whose fault it is just plays further into his “disruptor” method. It’s what he does. It’s what the board knew they were getting.
The senior technical expert in my department WFH 5 days a week. If contacted by phone, he might get back to you in 2 or 3 days. Maybe. Same with texts. Stupidest practice I’ve ever seen - having the senior tech expert be unavailable to the staff.
Management seems to have stopped WFH due to some abuses, but shouldn't you then just kick out these people and not randomly lay off employees and additionally cancel WFH for all ?
To think that employees who don't work WFH can be controlled in the office or work better is a misconception. You just bring them in the office but do you know what they are doing there ? I had managers who were on the internet 5 h a day, when everyone else was working. It is the manager's job to have a control in place and give assignments. If you have a lazy manager you don't get good results from a team, but it doesn't matter if it's in the office or WFH.
When you look at the weather situations worldwide, you have massive issues. Be it flooding in India, icy cold winters in the US, heat waves in other areas. Shouldn't you think that it would be better to reduce pollution by decreasing unnecessary movements, when you have the resources to do it ? BNYM speaks about sustainable and long term growth but has very short term ideas and a poor senior management qualities.
Nowadays working environments require flexility from the workforce and all our lives cascading this flexibility to our private life. We didn't chose this. The economy demanded it. But then you have to provide as a company a structure for it. To kill WFH is similar to trying to ask clients to communicate by phone or fax. You never can turn back time.
Pittsburgh also has sh--ty public transportation, even sh--tier snow removal, congested roads, and insufficient parking.
Let me defend the other side of the coin for WFH. It's not the full day but part of the day. These are the people who start conference calls from home with offshore teams prior to 8 AM. Depending on the group or individual it could be anywhere between 5 AM to 7 AM. Once the calls are over they go in to the office but it appears they are getting in between 10 to 12. They will work till after 5 PM.
I know so many of you are defending WFH. I've posted previously stating I'd love to see usage log. That would determine if there's abuse or not. If I expand my observation to my department of 150 folks instead of the 7 people in my group... I would say, there are more abuse than honest workers. Of course, this is just all hearsay. The only way we can determine if there's abuse or not is by usage log.
In NYC, about 1/3 of my dept worked from home on Thursday due to extreme cold weather. Feel like back to last 2 years. Yes, last 2 years, on any given day, 33-40% of my dept (150 people) wfh.
My WFH was initially approved in the WFH Database, but then rejected recently once management saw the number of people doing it.
Just a simple question. If everyone is working from home who is minding the store? Who worked from home and who didn't became arbitrary. No clear standard how option was allocated - managerial discretion = how brown is your nose. At least they are trying to level playing field yearly and allow everyone or none the opportunity. I call that fair and balanced progress.
Charlie must be posting on this thread.
Are there people that abused WFH? Sure.
Just like people abuse c-gare--e breaks and everything else.
Is that a reason to punish an entire workforce?
I've been an employee for almost 40 years and seen a lot of sh!t go down but this is about the end for me. If I don't get canned in the next round of cuts I'm taking my early retirement and going to Walmart to be a greeter. They actually get bonuses for not taking sick days instead of the worthless certificate I get now.
Everyone knows its Pittsburgh that got wfh canned, they just don't want to say it. Most only come into the office 1 - 2 days a week, and when they're there they get in at 9.30, go for lunch for an hour, and are gone by 4. Don't tell me I'm biased, I have seen it myself over and over again on week long visits over the last 10 years. If it's only 5 - 6 hours when youre in the office, surprise surprise no-one thinks youre working hard at home. They couldn't target one place so they killed wfh for anyone. This is a BANK. It's SUPPOSED to be COMPETITIVE and challenging where you have to WORK HARD to KEEP your place, not a retirement home for those who passed an interview once in 1985.
It ended for our department.
What do you mean “officially ended”? In your department or for everyone? I haven’t seen any announcements
When did they officially announce it?
They just officially ended our wfh. What's the next benefit we can cut?????
My experience in dealing with wfh employees is drastically different than what you just described.
If somebody is abusing, revoke that persons… Don't take away everybody's
The policy also states work from home can be up to two days a week although not a single person that I have heard of has had theirs approved.
Hey -cev
Your boss is NOT the exception. Your coworkers who abused it are. And they should have been reprimanded, along with the others in the minority who did so. Instead they punish everyone.
I know I will no longer log on in the evening, and most I have spoken to plan the same.
I would like to see BNY distribute wfh hours logged by employees. Friends who worked at Bank of America and Wells Fargo have seen wfh revoked. The primary reason, HR and IT logged people's VPN time, and they discover people often work about 5 hours. Typically , people logged in around 6 to check emails. Then disappear from 7-10:30 (send kids to school, run errands). Disappear from 12-1:30 (lunch, errands). Of course, picking up kids starting from 2:30 to about 4:30.
In my actual interaction with BNY colleagues who wfh can be summed up as frustrating. In fact, 2 known associates are known to never pick up phones when we called. We often joke they have second job. Most recently, I couldn't contact a colleague who wfh. His excuse, his wifi was down. I called him 3 times ; his excuse was he blocked all unwanted calls. What about my texts, his excuse was he didn't notice. Now that doesn't mean ALL BNYMers abuse the policy. My big boss is on constantly. You could find him wfh from 7-10 pm every night after working all day. However, I find my boss to be the exception. Just my 2 cents.
BTW, the new wfh policy does mention you can wfh during severe weather condition.
Mike Keslar couldn't be bothered with the admin work associated with WFH, so he got rid of it for anyone in his org chart.
oh yeah. everything is getting rejected even if your manager and managers manager approves it, from what I have heard.
What's he care. His company provided driver shuttled him from his penthouse (not the one he is in a legal battle about - id--t) right to the front door of BNY Bldg he works in NY so he can babysit all of the other exec's in the open floor plan that everyone hates.
Can't wait to take a look at the proxy to see what he gets in comp this year.
you guys already cancelled WFH? We didn't hear anything about it any more.