My spouse’s workplace, Orion Advisor Solutions, got a new CEO a month ago to replace its founder. Prior to this, they have been fully remote since 2020, announced that they would stay remote, and had plans to shut down several offices. The new CEO assembled a group of employees to gather feedback and put together ideas to encourage people to come into the office.
The CEO then sent out the survey about preferred RTO schedule to employees, with all options for less than 3 days a week in-office removed, and no mention of any proposed incentives such as childcare. It became clear the survey and employee committee was bullshit, and employees were going to be forced into the office a minimum of 60% of the time regardless of what employees thought.
After the obvious backlash, an employee sent out a company-wide petition. Ten minutes later, the petition e-mail disappeared from everyone’s inboxes. After that, the website the petition was on got blocked on all employees’ machines. In spite of this, it’s up to almost 200 signatures of the 1400 employees. Finally, the CEO sent out an email “apologizing” for lack of “inclusion and transparency,” but basically doubling down on the forced RTO for a company she had no part in building. This email made no mention of the petition IT blocked. For an extra laugh- their career page includes the following text:
“Work How You Want.
We're here to disrupt an industry, not your life. We empower you to do your best work. That means working the way you see fit.
Mac or PC? You decide. Come in or work remotely? It's up to you.”