TLDR: I've been working from home for 2 years now. For the last 4 months the company has taken away my monitors, docking station, keyboard, and mouse. They want to call me a “Hybrid” employee (partial in office, partial remote), despite an average of 2 days every of 6 months being in the office. No one is allowed to be fully remote and working from home (WFH) is a “perk”, nevermind the fact that they DO NOT have enough desks for everyone to be in the office anymore.
Context: I am an engineer at a Fortune 500 company in the central United States. At the beginning of COVID (~March 2020?), I was permitted to take all of my company issued computing equipment home: laptop, docking station, two monitors, keyboard, mouse, headset, cables, etc. Most employees worked from home full time, except those who preferred to remain onsite, or had tasks that required access to other assets that remained on-site (think lab equipment). During the telecommuting period, the company continued to hire at a pace that exceeded any separations (quitting, retiring, etc.).
At the end of April 2022, the company declared that all employees were to return their computing assets for an equipment audit. The audit would last two weeks, during which time, employees would keep their laptop and continue to work from home. At the end of the two weeks, they would be given desk assignments to share a desk on an alternating basis with another employee.
Ex. Week 1 and 3, Bob would use the desk at the office with two company issued monitors and proves that he exists while Joe sits at home and does pretend work on his laptop and whatever other computing equipment Joe determines is important enough to purchase with Joe's personal funds.
Week 2 and 4, Joe has to sit in the office at the company issued dual monitors to prove his existence while Bob sits at home and pretends to work on his laptop (plus personally funded computing setup).
That two week audit has turned into four months. Here we are, end of August 2022, and the company has all of our computing assets (minus the laptops), while we all continue to work from home. There is still no timeline for return to office. They refuse to designate anyone as “fully remote”, as that means they would have to allow us to take our monitors back. For some reason, I am hearing that new employees are no longer being issued two monitors and a supply chain issue is preventing the company from being able to provide docking stations to the new employees.
They have made it very clear that they will not be purchasing any more computing equipment to support a hybrid work arrangement. Policy says fully remote assignments will be by exception only and requires justification and approval at the highest leadership levels. They have stated leadership will not approve any fully remote assignments.
I have asked my boss to return my company issued equipment until they can sort out the seating chart, and I am ignored. My boss is dodging my questions and comments by spouting policy “company will not purchase additional monitors” and “everyone is required to be hybrid workers”. This is madness.
I struggle to speak up too loudly, lest I be singled out and forced to work from the office full time. They don't have enough desks for EVERYONE, but they do have a few desks and could certainly make a desk for someone who pisses off the wrong person. My boss has stated that my role does not require me to be onsite and that I have shown that I DO support onsite work and travel as necessary. I love working from home and do not want to give this up. I want to hold them responsible for providing the proper tools to do my job (PC monitors), and I would prefer to continue working from home indefinitely.
Any avenues to advocate for home computing equipment and WFH without sticking my neck out too much?