Elon has spoken. All telecommuting has ended at Twitter. All employees are expected to be in the office a minimum of 40 hours per week. Any and all exceptions must be approved by Elon.
Will Stankey and Santone follow Elons lead? Something tells me they will, and in short order.
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Open mic call with our AVP today, question about lack of office space, etc, and was told, most people will be working from home so office space shouldn’t be an issue. No word on adjusting our indicator from flex office, but we’re not expected in the office. Haven’t been there since Covid started and don’t plan to return, regardless what twitter does
In an otherwise good post, this doesn't make sense:
"I'm in HR, so.....about 10% of the management workforce is teleworker and 8% "flex office". About 20% are full time office."
Those numbers should add up to 100% right?
What I see is the majority is still assigned to office full time. The next largest group is flex office, finally followed by TW (full time teleworker). If I had to make an educated guess at percentages there, it would be 50-40-10 consecutively.
“ Either offer full time telecommuting to all employees or discontinue it altogether“
That makes no sense.
On-site collaboration is more important for some roles than it is for others. For some remote teams that are geographically dispersed, it’s not even possible.
Empower L3 and down to make the decision for their teams.
Why the weird fascination with Musk?
That said, as has been mentioned previously... AT&T's huge Corporate Real Estate organization has been very steadily reducing the owned and leased office space portfolio over the last 5-10 years (well before the pandemic). They were in direct opposition with the pre pandemic efforts that some organizations decided to take in getting everyone back in the office, full time (anyone remember the term "Collaboration Zone", or have our collective memories failed us?). There were legit conflicts between CRE leadership and the other organizations (such as ACE) leadership over this particular issue. Classic T bungling at the upper levels of management...with no communication and in fact working directly in opposition of each other.
Then the pandemic happened. The whole Collaboration Zone thing quietly went away. Orgs in ACE and others relaxed their policies again, empowering L3 and down to decide how their teams could work going forward...with most non bargained falling into the "flex" office worker category, recommending folks come into their office 1-3 times a week. Which of course means once a week, and that's not monitored at all, so basically no one goes into the office. Many offices were also closed during this time period. Managers were able to change folks to full time remote, which previously required like a 5th level approval and was quite rare.
Long story short, they can't just pivot again and go back to carte blanche all organizations, everyone in the office, every day, policy because they simply don't have the space for it anymore.
Do like Musk. End telecommuting, if you don’t come in resign. I love it!
The leadership team at T doesn't have the ba--s to discontinue telecommuting. Either offer full time telecommuting to all employees or discontinue it altogether.
I'm not aware that some telecommuters used "religious views" for approval of full time telecommuting. Not sure how that works!
It should be noted that if telecommuting was completely obliterated, there are many companies that offer great positions that are full time from home. A good way to lose good talent would be to ki-l off WFH.
If I am getting my job done, then why terminate the WFH capability? Why incur the real estate expense?
Another disaster in the making if they make that move.
Telecommuting has been so detrimental to productivity at T. Many employees are MIA for long periods throughout the day.
McElfresh is the one I hear most often talking about "collaboration" and "core hubs."
Donovan came to a campus and was greeted with an empty town hall and vast reaches of unoccupied cubicles, and this apparently spurred the telecommuter purge before COVID 19. But Donovan is now gone.
I don't know that Stankey has strong feelings one way or another, especially after he spent some time as a senior officer in California, remote from the Dallas HQ. I know he hates big meetings, preferring single digits.
I'm in HR, so.....about 10% of the management workforce is teleworker and 8% "flex office". About 20% are full time office. That translates into 70,000 employees to pull back to the offices occupied by 80,000 FTOs. Some senior leaders may want to do it (see above) but the additional real-estate cost would be large at a time when the company is tightening the belt. The new open office model with transient workspaces would be even less popular if required a full five days a week.
All that said, the company has made Elon-esque sweeping decisions in the past, and if the current court of jacks kings and queens convinces themselves the cost benefit of in-your-face collaboration is preferable to employees putting in 12 hour days from home (which they do), it could happen.
Do not compare Stinkey to Musk and T to Twitter.
Can we just Brin Elon in for a week and kick some worker bu-t?
They'll talk crooked, fail to follow through. people with religious accommodations will work from home for years while leadership procrastinates .
Do you really think any officer is going to rescind a religious accommodation? They have trouble making any HR related decision. Lawyers punk these leaders constantly.
Yep, Elon's new policy mandates a minimum of 40 hours per week in the office. He will need to approve any/all exceptions! I would not challenge Elon, it doesn't sound like he is playing.
The big question? What will Stankey and Santone do?
To further clarify what Elon said, Google is yet friend!
Elon said to expect rough times ahead. Ordered all employees back into the office immediately. He said there is no way to "sugarcoat it". Any exceptions to the telecommuting policy will need to be personally approved by Elon. What are the odds of getting an exception? Zero!
It didn't seem like Elon was playing, I don't think I would challenge Elon.
Ill make sure to leave my computer and phone at the office. Let that sink in on productivity.
To clarify what Elon said, he said work from anywhere is over. Anywhere meaning, on the beach in Hawaii or sitting in the mountains. I have no issue going into the office a couple days a week or even daily if it made sense. However, my entire team is elsewhere. None of us are collocated. We work a ton of hours, nights, weekends on top of our 9-5 M-F. If I had to sit in an office, no way would I be willing to stay all that extra time, nor does it make sense if I’m always on conference calls anyways.
RE has been rapidly consolidating and closing office space all together. Impossible to have it both ways.
It's more of a power play by Stankey. He will make decisions void of any common sense. He doesn't care for T employees and would not think twice about making your life miserable. He would even go to great expense, leasing vacant building space, if needed. It looks like telecommuting is quickly falling out of favor with the corporate world!
The difference is Twitter employees are mostly co-located in a super expensive high tech gorgeous building that they SHOULD go to.
If he had a lot of remote workers, it might be different. This is comparing apples to oranges.
Deep down inside, we all wanna be like Elon.
My work location went form 3 buildings down to a single floor, wouldn't be surprise if the remaining space will be closed by next year. Back to the office, better get corporate real estate to sign a new lease first, good luck.
I thought everyone was already back in the sh---y stinky offices! All is well with the fake unprofessional managers and employees who are happy to be back to gossip and have their miserable friends to help them do it. The commenter who trolls this page to drag ppl who WFH and thinks all should be in the office what a d-mb azz u are it’s more expense for us to pay for offices but of course You are the one I mentioned, a no life having id--t who wants to see ppl at work cus U have nobody at home to talk to but your miserable self! If U had a life at home U wouldn’t care less about where ppl are working from. U say get to work I say get a life and some friends outside of the offices loser!
I hope AT&T follows this move. Everyone needs to be in the office. Put an end to this WFH cr-p.
Just the comments I am reading on this post plus others about how the company doesn't care about you, could care less what you think, etc. is one of the absolute reasons AT&T is such a shithole company to work for. They do not care about you, your family, your mental and physical health.... You are just a number to them. You are replaceable within 5 minutes of you leaving via retirement, quitting, death, etc. They have so much free cash available they can afford to not care about you.
Don't think for 1 minute HR is there for you. They are not. HR simply exists to protect the company at all costs. Period. You are simply there to maximize the wealth of the shareholders and they will use you for that purpose and for that purpose only.
You simply exist to satisfy the needs of the business. Once that need is no longer viable, you are not viable and will be disposed.
Have a nice day.
A few years back Christopher T. Rice edicted all employees will report to work during "core hours" and as a floating Maintenance Engineer we would have to go in to work, not take our personal car to the field. O.K. That id--t even had us turn in our printers.
That's when I started working 40 hour weeks and I was out of town on weekends and quit taking telephone emergency phone calls from the field after 5:00pm. I suppose these guys scre wed off and figured everyone did. Well I don't know of any employee that did but at the EVP level that id--t made the rules and I cannot compute how many previous free hours was donated to the company. After the "rules" most of us just worked the 40 hours & ignored pleas from the field for help.
As much as I hate twitter and all of social media, it’s definitely a di-k move of him to do that. As long as you can be productive and your job can be done remotely, companies should give you that option. When you consider that the large majority of T employees are based out of a bunch of offices that look like dingy old basements, it makes even less sense to be in an office.
This lawyer/HR driven overreaction to a virus with 99.5% survival rate has made my life balance way better.
Not going back in anytime soon. Never achieved more, never paid more, never noticed more than full time work at home office. Going in makes no difference and is actually a f-kkin waste.
I think Stankey will just lease more space, if needed. Stankey is not a fool.
Not possible, there is no longer enough AT&T office space for management employees
to be in office every day unless you're in Dallas.