Thread regarding AT&T layoffs

_“This working model is far less important than the work environment leaders create.”_

Well, "we hate driving an hour both ways to sit at a screen and talk on the phone." Goes both ways, pun intended.

McKinsey's bullet points apply to virtual office (WFH). It's not policy, but practice, they say. We never put the appropriate practice into play, and still have not.

The company failed miserably to develop effective work from home practices when we were quarantined five years ago. Those accustomed to "grabbing a room"
it could not or would not use screen sharing. People were surprised to learn my group—remote for years—kept an open bridge going all day,

When landlines went away (yes, we've been around that long), we had to use personal mobile as the COU would rack up billable minutes. "What were you doing on a 10 hour call?" Uhm, working, sir.

An L3 that came to our call was amazed we sat within (remote) earshot all day, acting as if that was a privacy intrusion. "No worse than sitting in an open office in some building," we countered.

Legg even muttered out loud on a hot mic at the start of a town hall "I hate Teams."

Suffice it to say I'm looking forward to retiring out of this place. Didn't see "demoralization" and "time wasted in commute" mentioned in McKinsey's report, but then again they're paid to deliver the news clients want to hear.

Surveys like this is exactly why we will never go back to hybrid. I hate McKinsey

These consultant companies provide only the answers they are told to provide. They exist to outsource blame for unpopular decisions. If a company wants to layoff 50% of their workforce, they just call McKinsey and tell them to drum up some data to support that. Force everyone back into the office? They can give you a report that supports it. Want to go full remote? They can do that too. It is all post-hoc rationalization for whatever evil stuff the execs want to do.

McKinsey and the their ilk have two goals:

1. Get more 8-figure projects from Stankey and his friends.
2. Place former employees at companies like AT&T so that McKinsey can get more 8-figure projects from Stankey and his friends.

So what they do is say sure, laying off 10,000 people or forcing people back to the office or getting people addicted to dr-gs, you name it, is a great idea, but you need our slick deck and pseudoscientific data to just tweak things a bit to make it seem less craven and greedy.

That’s how you get articles like this one. The execs implementing this junk can say, well our consultants say the employees are good with it or it will be better long-term or whatever. I literally heard this at another company to justify cutting health insurance benefits.

If you really polled 10,000 AT&T or Amazon grunts, do you seriously think over 8,000 would say they are perfectly fine with requiring 5 days in office? Really?

So yes, op is right. This is how the Stankeys of the world justify their stupidity and the McKinseys of the world are happy reap the profits by providing cover for the CEOs.

OP here. Glad y’all have the same visceral reaction as I did reading this absolute cr-p.

Just wanted to share what our leadership team is probably using in their decision making strategy

Hey “TLDR” guy.

GFY.

You bring nothing to the table.

RTO is becoming an industry standard.

“According to recent surveys, over 91 percent of employees now expect flexible work options, with 54 percent favoring hybrid models and 37 percent preferring fully remote roles.”

https://thehill.com/opinion/technology/5281444-return-to-office-mandates-are-already-causing-major-us-brain-drains/

Right on cue and basically the exact opposite of what the folks who helped goose the opi--d epidemic claimed. Believe what you want. Both sources have agendas but if you think 81% of people who are forced to work in offices full-time want to keep that arrangement, I have some nice oceanfront property in Kansas you may be interested in.

TLDR

“Both remote workers and workers who are mostly in person report similarly low levels of wanting to switch, at 19 percent”

This means that remote workers don’t want to switch working models and go into the office, and those that already work in the office don’t want to switch and work from home. (These people consist of primarily non-Costco club members)

“This working model is far less important than the work environment leaders create.”

I guess from the quote in the report, AT&T didn’t bother to read it.

“Both remote workers and workers who are mostly in person report similarly low levels of wanting to switch, at 19 percent”

Typical self-serving garbage from an evil organization. 81% of people forced to go to the office 5 days a week are happy about it? Only Kim Jong Un and Vladimir Putin could generate numbers like that. Show me a place other than one that exists to kiss the a-s of C-suite leaders who would generate such a result.