At&t laid off several of its long term, good performing employees under the pretext of employees violating the code of conduct policy for failing to come to the office for at least 3 hours.
This is just a very lame excuse to target employees who had served the company for more than 20 years and just show them the door without the need to offer any severance.
A very shameful and deceitful act especially since this new policy was just implemented few weeks back and all employees had just started to comply to it after shunting between different buildings where no space was available.
Blame lies with the upper management for treating their loyal workforce in such a shameful and deceing manner!!
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This is typical. Rules are vague, unwritten, changed without notification, then people are fired for rules they didn't know. This is the only rule I know by heart and can depend on.
I heard more mgmt were fired in early May for lack of compliance with RTO minimum hours.
Does not surprise me at all!!!
What's the infamous Labor Union CWA doing about these draconian moves of AT&T???? ALL THE LABOR UNION DUES taken out AT&T employees!!!
next round, they're going after people doing less thn 6
If RTO meant 8 hours then why to discriminate based on less than 3 hours. Did HR or leadership mentioned RTO means less than 8 hours presence in office premises. If not then terminate everyone who was not present in office premise for 8 hours and didn’t have any personal emergency. Don’t blame employees for poor communication by HR , Leadership and Management. You don’t have seating capacity, your building is suppose to ready by May. You ask those location employees to RTO from May 1 for 8 hours and still terminate employees to save your money even they worked for 8 hours. Totally illogical decision. Poor HR , poor management.
I think "compliance" became the next focus when not as many people as they'd hoped declined to follow the job.
RTO was never meant to be 8 hours presence in office until they were about to publish from May 2025 ~8 hours for all locations where their building premises were getting renovated to provide more seats to employees.
RTO was started for reconciling all the locations to 3 major Hubs, and to tell employees that they will need to present in these hub locations and to monitor their presence on those locations they should be login to AT&T Lan or Corporate wifi.
It was never mentioned in any of their notices or emails that now onwards you have to seat for certain hours in office whether its 1-8 hours.
They see that after they send report in February everyone was following office hours based in what their supervisor told 4-8 hours. They couldn’t find any loophole other than using January report to blame employees and terminate them. There are several employees who worked more than 8 hours but they overlooked their dedication, passion and faithfulness in the company.
Its leadership failure, management failure.
Instead of terminating HR, who could not provide good information, their bad communication m, the hard working employees got terminated.
AT&T should revisit their decision and see if they really did something wrong and employees deserve a good communication from HR system.
I’m in Legg org, we were told mid-Sept via our Director about the mysterious “6-hours” counted as “in the office”. We were also told the company was tracking connection to company LAN proving you were actually at the office 3 days a week.
Mid-Feb when the new report came out, and we were told 8 hours per office day. Sounds like not all leadership trickled down the details which is really sad and unfair.
I know some other orgs started back 5 days in Jan.
Yes the facility space and parking is inadequate in many locations which is very frustrating.
These were straight up terminations so no severance. Cut headcount, cut expenses, higher stock price. Sad company “culture”. No trust.
For those “in compliance” of new policies, all of this has created a lot of noise, distraction, and nervousness.
Besides in 2019 when they wanted us to work 4 days minimum in the office, I personally have not had to work in the office 5 days a week since 2007. I don’t work directly with people in my office.
I don't believe I've heard or seen it documented anywhere what the "hours" expectation is. With 5 days/week RTO I would just assume its 8 hours now. Because of the rumors here about tracking hours, I started working 8 hours in the office back in November to stay off the "naughty" list. Prior to that, I worked in the office 4.5 hours, drove home (to avoid traffic), and finished the day there.
This is unfortunate, but no one should be surprised at this point. They've made it clear that years of service, loyalty, or high quality work is enough. They are just looking for reasons to shed more employees.
I am holding firm on my choice that, if I'm required to be in the office and they don't "count" work outside the office, then they will get exactly 8 hours. I also understand that, at some point, that might bite me in the a$$ if they are still looking for places to cut and there are others that are putting in 9 or 10 hours a day, even if they produce less. There's just no way I'm giving the b@stards more than 8. I work hard during those 8 hours and I do a lot, but that's all they get.
No CWA layoffs announced today, thought perhaps there might be! I really would love to be laid off because the work load just isn't there anymore. Too many techs, not enough work!
We were told 5 days a week, 8 hours a day. And… you must write where you are if not in the office in moose.
Terminating employees who is not working for 8 hours or falsifying their attendance is fine.
But what AT&T management did is wrong, they terminated their employees who were giving their best, they were working for 10-12 hours to meet business needs. Employees were going to office to be complaint to make attendance and they sit in office for hours as much they were comfortable sitting in too crowded place, as they were tracking attendance by who were connected to their office network.
It’s fine if they are saying RTO means 8 hours, but they never communicated it. They said that from January its RTO and never mentioned about how many hours are expected to be in office. Still it’s fine that any employee is required to be 8 hours with RTO.
They knew it that their office premises are over occupied, people are feeling discomforts thats why they moved their RTO for certain locations in May. Still they terminated those locations employees too even though they worked more than 8 hours every day.
If AT&T Guarantee is not for their employees what AT&T guarantee will do to their customers. If AT&T management is smart then Customer is God they should not forget.
I’m happy the folks who only work three hours a day were fired. Time to clean house.
I'm looking for a reason to stay
I'm all wound up and tied in knots today
I'm looking for a reason not to go
When the morning comes, I'll be on my way
Those fired employees decided to play chicken with Stankey, guess who won! Stankey has all the cards, employees have none.
I also got impacted with it. They never mentioned about their office hours. They didn’t give any warning and just took action even though employee was improving office hours after they published report in February. Even though they are aware about their building condition that it was over crowded in the month of January but they still take action based on HR compliance issue.
" At&t laid off several of its long term, good performing employees under the pretext of employees violating the code of conduct policy for failing to come to the office for at least 3 hours"
too bad, so sad. these are the folks who think they're to valuable to touch. lol, legends in their own mind. with 130k emps, there's thousands like you. you're not special
Good thing I’m Union protected.
Company can’t fire me on a good day.
Now ask me to retire is a separate issue.
Seen that…
The company is a fkn FARCE. No leadership, mostly managers being ignorant demeaning, demoralizing weaklings. The performers are leaving, the workers will continue to be abused. Top performers are penalized with higher, increased.. unattainable quotas. Resulting in not making commissions.. hence the company “saving” $ for Wall Street.. falsely. And we’ve already begun to hear… if you’re under performing you can expect performance plans.. to remove you from the company. Pathetic and toxic culture. Stinky and crew
“So four hours and one minute is what I’m doing!”
Apparently, you haven't been paying attention. If you WANT to get terminated, this is a good approach. Other than that, it's a bad idea.
And if you think you're covered because some VP offhandedly mumbled something during a town hall about the "majority" of your day needing to be in office, you are delusional.
" At&t laid off several of its long term, good performing employees under the pretext of employees violating the code of conduct policy for failing to come to the office for at least 3 hours."
Laid off or terminated?
Not the same thing. "IF" they were laid off with severance, I would think that would only serve to drive noncompliance UP.
My guess is that they were terminated.
No sympathy here bud. Wish I only had to RTO 3 hours.
“At&t laid off several of its long term, good performing employees under the pretext of employees violating the code of conduct policy for failing to come to the office for at least 3 hours.”
Good performers? GTCOH!
“Paradise townhall he stated “majority” of your day should be in the office. Good thing a recorded the recording of that because that seems pretty vague to me. So four hours and one minute is what I’m doing!”
When HR comes, Mike already knows about it and he’s signed off on your departure. You’re a fool.
“So four hours and one minute is what I’m doing!”
Are you only a part time employee?
Missing on attendance gives AT&T a severance free termination. In fact, if they tell you 8×5, and the employee doesn't do it, that's insubordination.
So far, the economy has been kept afloat due to "unsustainable" deficit spending, which acts as fiscal stimulus. With that spending being reigned in, this economy could go sour quickly. Recession could be in the cards.
Paradise townhall he stated “majority” of your day should be in the office. Good thing a recorded the recording of that because that seems pretty vague to me. So four hours and one minute is what I’m doing!
5x8 or terminate.
T has needed to shed full time employees working part time hours and retirees in place for years.
Those employees were good at tennis and golf. Lots of practice while WFH.
How could these folks be so clueless regarding what has been going for well over 2 years now such that they never asked questions about how it does or does not apply to them?
"failing to come to the office for at least 3 hours"
I don't know to what policy you are referring. We (my group) have been given 2 directives: the first was 3-days a week in office, and the second was 5 days a week in office. There was never an implication that only 3 hours would count as a 'day.' Personally, if I'm going to drive into the office, I'm going to spend the entire day there. Otherwise, it seems like a waste of a shower, putting on real clothes, and I want to spend at least twice as long in the office as I did on the drive in and the drive home to make the commute worth it.
Names and orgs or we will just assume you are another HR propagandist trying to spread rumors to improve compliance.
It’s basic psychology too. The way they are treating people is having the opposite effect of all this productivity they want
It’s sickening. I got no warning of the hours and tracking until I got a stern warning from management that I wasn’t “meeting hours”, although I had valid documentation as to why I was out, AND of course, my work was done (and then some). To be reprimanded like a child was so demeaning after dedicating years and max effort to this company. Had no idea they were tracking until after I got the talking-to. They talk about wanting “doers” but do nothing to drive this “culture” they so badly want.
My manager gave us 2 stern warnings in one week. I knew something was up because he’s never really been a strict rule follower. I complied.
WoW! Talk about heavy handed.
Ive been back 5x8 since 1/6.
If your boss waited until recently to issue 5x8 they didn’t do you any favors. All the people just coming back now and testing the waters are getting whacked. You skipped the first few months we were here. They ain’t playing around anymore. It’s forced reduction across the enterprise time.