I’ve received different answers within my team: if you have a PTO day or two during a connect week but then have to WFH another day that week, does that matter? Some say who cares you lost the week anyway (about the 60%) and others think it will be held against you, the WFH day. Seems like there’s no detailed absolute guidance.
10 replies (most recent on top)
Rules are useless unless enforced. Find a firm that treats you as an adult and not an ABadge.
@ap a friend and I just left the firm over this. Just find a better job.
@ey before Covid we came in daily to our own desk. Coming in now is ineffective and kind of nasty. I didn’t complain, I just left the firm in April.
Not sure how it is with different business units/locations but tech workers being remote was common in Westlake. These people were designated as “remote” and often went into the drop-in seating areas when they did go into the office.
@ez IT folks being fully remote was an exception not the rule. Usually a very loose agreement that could be wiped away anytime. We had a principal software engineer who was remote 100% of the time. He was asked to mentor people who who knew to the group and help with onboarding folks in the systems where he was the sme. He ignored frequent requests to attend meeting in person. They can change the rules at will any old time. This guy eventually gut canned when a new manager took over. Is it always fair? He-l no. But that's the real world
A lot of people at Fidelity in the technology space used to be either fully remote or would only come into the office on special occasions, I.e when their managers would come into town.
One thing I can't understand what's the problem with people in following connect week schedule?
Pre COVID everyone used to be in the office without complaining.
When I started my career, we didn't even have laptops so had no choice to come in, stay late until we got sh-t done.
This generation is so done for, call me a dinosaur if you must, but we didn't get this far by whining throughout our job.
If you want to stay at home, get a job as babysitter.
I know one person who was fired for missing Connect Weeks. First, he made a habit of only coming in every other week. He did this for a few months. He got warned by his manager who was at the same site and noticed him missing. In response, he started just not coming in at all. He then got a warning from HR after a few months of doing this, he kept doing this and got a second warning from HR. A month or so after this warning, he got fired. He was not coming into the office at all for five months before he was fired and got three warnings: one from his manager and two from HR.
I think the software isn’t as smart as some people think it is. A lot of “attendance checking” seems to be done manually by a manager at the same site as you which explains the co-location push. It really depends on your manager because I’ve heard stories of managers being lenient and letting their reports do half days but I’ve also heard of managers taking attendance at the office.
Also, my own manager told me to make up my days off during Connect Weeks because he himself got into trouble for missing too many Connect Weeks in a row. So some people have been given guidance to make up days.
As long the data recon is proper you won't be flagged.
That said, if you put time off during connect week, you need to enter the time off in workday.
If you decide to WFH during connect week you need to enter WORKED OFFSITE in workday.
If you make a regular pattern of working off-site during connect week, you'll be flagged.
If you are taking time off during connect weeks but enter in workday regularly, you are fine.
This is complying to fidelity policy, so you won't be penalized for that.
Additionally, if your time off data (hours) in workday does not match time off data (hours) track IT then your manager will receive a note to check with associate.
Fidelity tracks EVERYTHING, currently there are humans monitoring and associates CAN get free pass without getting into too much trouble.
Soon this is going to be AI based, so don't get upset if you land yourself in trouble for a day missed during connect weeks.
I think it only becomes a problem if you have a pattern of wfh during connect weeks. What constitutes a pattern, I don’t exactly know, but I’m a manager and HR has never flagged anything with my reports. They do occasionally work from home for normal reasons like being sick, work being done at their house, etc. I think occasionally is fine, but if every connect week you’re missing a day then it would likely get flagged.