Thread regarding Bank of America layoffs

Unfortunately we only know what the media reports which is only partial info. I haven't heard how many positive results are actually serious vs. those with no symptoms. We were told early on this would not go away. The concern was and is hospital ICU space. Most hospitals try to stay around 75% capacity to cover expenses (elective or non critical surgeries)... most hospital stays are only 1 - 3 days so % info would change daily. All hospitals have contingency plans for disasters, i.e. large number of ER and ICU cases... I just can't believe the MSM at all. They never report that the virus has a survival rate of 99% (almost). They never include city, county or state population totals when they talk about the number of cases. They talk about a vaccine, but know that the flu vaccine any year is only about 40-50% effective.... My only concern is why they want the US population living in constant fear for our safety? Why are they pushing masks when they know in reality they won't protect you. Meat processing plant workers wear plastic head to toe including masks and face shields and there were still cases in the plant. Key is still, just like avoiding any illness, wash your hands, don't touch face or pick nose! God bless America and all Americans, who are from all nationalities, religions, race.... WWG1WGA

Is anyone else concerned about returning to work after Labor Day? Some hub areas: CA,TX, AZ, and FL are seeing the worst spike in COVID lately, with predictions of the worst to come. Sept seems too soon. I'm not sure why it's beneficial for us for congest the transit system for the first responders and healthcare workers whom are required to be out during this time.

Just received an emails stating returning to work will start after Labor Day. No mention of the plan to bring folks back, but at least we now we know why they sent us 5 masks, one for each day of the work week.

There was not a specific mention of high risk people, but they did say decisions would be made at the individual level so I’m sure high risk people will be handled different.

To the poster who wrote about the All Hands call, was there any discussion of how "high risk" people would be handled?

In today’s all hand they stated our return will need to have a business case - so that person would be more productive or there’s op risk or there’s significant cost for them to wfh. Initially will be limited to certain people and will be a combo of looking at the virus trends and what controls are in the community (tracing etc)
There will be temp checks daily, have to wear a mask the entire time and require 6 feet social distance. Only where we have real estate that is ready to accept people
First phase of evaluation will be done by June

I heard they are installing plexiglass in the space mod areas. These will be between each person and will return soon as these are installed. :)

They are going to have to rethink that hoteling strategy and reconfigure seating or do a and b teams that alternate.

Thank you to both posters. This is very helpful information. September does seem reasonable. I'm curious how Charlotte will return with the open seating/hoteling floor plan, which isn't conducive to an environment with communicable disease. Time will tell.

I don’t remember anyone mentioning seating plans for the new location on the call @khpf+14KGafvU. It will be interesting to see how it goes since they already planned to do away with assigned desks and put us closer together in a so-called collaborative work environment. Someone asked about a return to the office again on another call yesterday and they gave the answer that @kmkz+14KGafvU did except for the September part. I totally believe the September part though.

The September date was from a reliable source in the CAO group which runs HR/real estate. Moynihan has publicly said he would take a floor by floor, region by region approach.

Hello, @iwrd+14KGafvU, do you know if the new Chicago office has implemented desks 6 feet apart for safe physical distancing, even after September? I am not trying to start trouble, but for safety reasons, I'm curious what changes will be made on site when the eventual shift back to the office all over takes place for everyone.

Also, to the other poster that commented he/she heard September (at the earliest) as a return date as well. Is that for all of the US or other countries too? Thank you.

I’ve heard the earliest we will return is September

I work in the Chicago office and on a call last week they emphasized that our new building would be move in ready in September. I’m wondering if they will keep us on WFH until then or try rotating work shifts? Either way I can’t see the bank spending money to reconfigure the old space if they have to put safety precautions in place at the new building.

I doubt HR will have any clue what will be considered an exception to remain working from home. Doctor sign off will be required, likely for something that fits into a high risk category for Covid. Management probably won't encourage people to use exceptions, as this will mean people getting more opportunities to work from home. I am sure there will be certain positions deemed unable to work from home on a long term basis. There will be all sorts of loopholes and the company will do their best to minimize exceptions.

I never want to go back to the office. I have wanted to work from home for years and they always said no. I will call HR to see what they need for a waiver. The bank has invested for me work at home given me a set up to work from home and my production number are as good as in the office. I have many contacts at other financial companies who let their fraud analysts work from home before the pandemic why not me.

August. Also space mod is great for this virus closer than 6 feet apart. NOT

If you really listen to the CNBC interview that Moynihan did, he actually said people would come back in phases, by region, but not until a vaccine is developed and deployed.

I just heard the bank won’t bring us back to the office until July at the earliest.

Seems like the bank has only gotten worse since I left back in '04 or '05. There weren't many "hotel" cubes because corp real estate or work place resources or whatever it's called now billed each department for the number of cubicals they had which had a direct impact on each department's budget. Employee cubes were larger and cost more and contractors were crammed multiple people into smaller cubes than single employees that cost less than employee cubes. The building management team would disable the phones and network connections in unoccupied cubes to prevent managers from letting their staff work temporarily out of them to cut cube costs.

Thankfully "hoteling" wasn't a thing when I was there.

On the other hand, Capital One went all-in on mobile desks where they'd over allocate people to a building by 1/3 because they had a study that said at any given time 1/3 of staff were either on PTO, in a meeting, or otherwise not at their desks. No one is assigned desks and if you were going to be gone from the desk for more than 30 min, you were supposed to remove your personal effects so that someone else could sit at that desk. They provided alcohol/disinfectant wipes to wipe down the keyboard/mouse/phone at each desk between people's use. That was back in '05 and I heard they were still doing that when I was contacted about interviewing for a position in '18. I told the recruiter I had NO interest in working in that sort of environment.

Hopefully they start to embrace the WFH concept.

Moynihan has publicly stated he doesn’t want to bring people back in until its stable as he doesn’t want to have to flip flop back to home. But it’s also been publicly stated we are not abandoning our office space layouts, which I don’t see the ‘hoteling’ idea being safe anytime soon. Plus, now they’d have to provide everyone with masks daily I believe.

The people whose job consists of reading legislation and regulations to see if any of it affects the bank must be quite busy!

No word on when folks will return to office. However, there are plenty of people getting ready to apply for exceptions to continue to work from home based due to medical exceptions based on risk factors to do with Covid: hypertension, diabetes, obesity, asthma, etc. There are people who have been assigned to the open concept office spaces that are terrified to return. Who wants to take the chance of sitting so close to someone? It was unpleasant before, but out of the question now. There are two rumors going around: 1. return to work will be phased in but won't start until all states are open and 2. offices are being reconfigured to create more space between cubes. Neither are believable.